The government praised investment made by American Micron for the first Made-in-India semiconductor chips expected to be rolled out by December 2024.
Micron’s investment
It called it a “significant and meaningful milestone” in the country’s journey to gain resilience in electronics manufacturing.
Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said up to five semiconductor plants are likely to be set up in the country within a year.
Micron’s $2.75 billion project will also bring around 200 smaller units as part of the ecosystem.
Gujarat plant
Land allocation, factory design work and tax compliance-related agreement for the Micron plant to be set up in Gujarat has been completed.
“The first Made-in-India chip from Micron is expected to come out in about six quarters from now”, Vaishnaw said.
Minister of State for IT & Electronics Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that an estimated 80,000 new jobs are likely to be created after big-ticket announcements by players including Micron, Applied Materials, and Lam Research.
Job creation
The announcements were a “significant and meaningful milestone” and “central piece” in the growth of the semiconductor ecosystem in India.
“These three investment decisions will create a minimum of 80,000 jobs directly in my estimate and indirectly the numbers could be much higher.
More than that, it will be a catalyst to the overall electronics and semiconductor ecosystem,” Chandrasekhar said.
Applied Materials
Apart from Micron’s announcement, semiconductor equipment maker Applied Materials plans to invest $400 million over the next four years to build a collaborative engineering centre in Bengaluru.
This will focus on the development and commercialisation of technologies for semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
Lam Research
Lam Research plans to train 60,000 Indian engineers through its Semiverse Solution virtual fabrication platform to accelerate India’s semiconductor education and workforce development goals.
PM’s vision
The development comes amidst Prime Minister Narendra’s Modi’s visit to the US and his meetings with President Joe Biden.
Chandrasekhar said, “The PM’s vision is to make India a central presence in the global semiconductor value chain.
And India is slowly and surely, after 75 years of being totally absent from the semiconductor space, becoming a growing force in the semiconductor ecosystem… from design to talent, and packaging to research and soon-to-be in Fab.”
