Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s chip making ambitions of bringing up a $3 billion Semiconductor Chip Manufacturing facility in India seems likely to be put on hold. The semiconductor facility was being built by chip consortium ISMC that counted Israeli chipmaker Tower as a tech partner for this huge venture. According to a report by Reuters, this process has been delayed as the US chip making giant Intel is taking over its Israeli counterpart. Many big firms like Foxconn joint venture that bid for India’s $10 billion semiconductor incentives and other companies are struggling to find a technology partner.
A second mega $19.5 billion chip manufacturing plan by a joint venture between India’s Vedanta and Taiwan’s Foxconn to build chips locally in India is also seeing delay and proceeding slowly because of their talks to rope in European chipmaker STMicroelectronics as a partner for this project are deadlocked.
Semiconductor Chip Manufacturing in India
India, expects its semiconductor market to be worth $63 billion by 2026. Chip making has been a top priority for India’s economic strategy to create new era in electronics manufacturing bringing many opportunities. According to the reports, Tower is unable to proceed to sign binding agreements and the deal is yet to receive regulatory approvals. In an interview, MoS IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar also said ISMC “could not proceed” due to Intel acquiring Tower, and IGSS “wanted to re-submit (the application)” for incentives. The “two of them had to drop out,” he added, without elaborating.
The sources said that Tower is likely to be expected to reevaluate its position in the venture and it depends on how the deal talks with Intel pan out. As of now, the parties involved in these two deals have declined comment on this situation.
