The EE Times reports that Indian Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Kapil Sibal announced major semiconductor investments.
Two consortia have proposed to build semiconductor wafer fabrication units in India. One consortium comprises IBM, India’s Jaiprakash Associates and Israel’s Tower Jazz. The second comprises Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (HSMC), ST Microelectronics and Silterra. The investment in the first fabrication unit will be $4 billion while the second unit will have a total investment of around $3.9 billion.
M.J. Zarabi, who headed the Empowered Committee responsible for the feasibility study for the setting up of a fab, told EE Times: “This is a decision that we have been keenly looking forward to. It is indeed a momentous decision that is expected to be a game changer as far as Indian electronics industry is concerned.” Also for Ajay Kumar, the soft-spoken joint secretary of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, who has always been championing the cause of a fab in India at almost every forum he speaks at, this is a culmination point for his espousal. He had always believed that if India had its own fab, then it would be easier to make a mark on the global hardware map.
