Chipmaker Sahasra Semiconductors Private Ltd, established at Bhiwadi, in the state of Rajasthan, announced plans to start assembly, testing, marking and packaging production in India. The company will initially focus on basic packaging, which is currently imported from China. This move marks Sahasra’s entry into the growing semiconductor market and aims to reduce India’s dependence on Chinese imports.
Sahasra sees a gap and opportunity in the lower-end packaging market, which is dominated by China. India’s pivot toward domestic manufacturing, along with global shifts such as the U.S.-China trade war, further incentivizes local production.
Sahasra’s packaging plans were seeded through a prior 2016-2019 partnership with Sony for solid-state memory, although Sony later exited the memory business worldwide. Despite this setback, Sahasra remained committed to exploring packaging, especially after India introduced production-linked incentives in 2020.
The company initially considered focusing solely on memory packaging to leverage existing demand. However, given shifts in the memory business, it decided to start with low-end products such as USB and microSD packages which have wide application. This aligns with the company’s roadmap to move into higher-end packages later.
For the initial phase, Sahasra has invested $20M so far out of a $25M total planned investment. An additional $30M is planned for phase two.
