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TAP TIMES -4- JANUARY 2023
Made in India (from 3)
status to First World desperately craves its
own Silicon Valley, where advanced wafer
fabrication is part of the economy.
While a foreign-owned fab would certainly
face some logistics problems, New Delhi,
the capital of India, is only 1,852 air miles
further from Silicon Valley than Beijing. This car was manufactured by Tata Motors, part of the second largest businesses in
India and the country’s largest vehicle maker. (Tata)
ing space, India is yet to make a mark.”
Distance is not insurmountable
China, of course, has several foreign- The high cost of power
owned fabs including TSMC and Korea’s sk A conclusion of the committee is that “the
Hynix (formerly Intel’s fab in Dalian). So key impediment” to fulfilling its semicon-
distance is not insurmountable. ductor dreams “is the ability of creating
aglobal scale of operations and address-
Being located within India to feed the ing specific disabilities like the high cost of
domestic market, particularly in memory, power and finance.”
makes a lot of sense. Feeding China’s
domestic semiconductor market, after all, Since its feeble efforts more than a decade
has been the initial goal of China’s memo- ago, it was not until the government of
ry fabs.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2021 re-
newed its visible efforts to bring semicon-
While there are a few, small chip assem- ductor manufacturing to the country.
bly and packaging plants in the country, a
commercial fab has remained an elusive $1 billion bounty
hope for decades, although prospects have In its on again/off again pursuit of semi-
brightened slightly in the past year. conductor manufacturing, the Indian gov-
ernment broadcast its willingness to pay a
Fab investment $1 billion bounty to any company, domes-
In recent history, India’s government has tic or foreign, that agreed to locate a fab
been trying to woo a big-name, foreign fab within the country.
with incentives.
While $1 billion would be a dazzling in-
In April 2011, the Ministry of Communica- centive for some manufacturing compa-
tions and Information Technology reported nies, the cost of siteing a wafer fab for
it had set-up a committee to identify tech- advanced 200-300mm wafers could easily
nology and investors for setting up semi- run $3 to $4 billion.
conductor fabrication.
Available industry sources, in fact, indi-
The Ministry pointedly noted that India cate that TSMC invested $9.3 billion in its
had already become a “global power in the Fab 15, 300 mm, advanced wafer manu-
software and services sector.” facturing facility in Taiwan. Last year, the
Taiwan-based giant said it would spend
The committee added, with some under- upwards of $3.5 billion for a 5nm fab in
statement, “In the high-tech manufactur-
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