BENGALURU: The country will get three more semiconductor chip fabrication units with the cumulative investments between $8-12 billion in next few months, said minister for electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday.
On the sidelines of semiconductor company AMD’s launch of a global design centre in Bengaluru, he said talks are on with Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Gujarat and Karnataka governments for setting up units. Vaishnaw said they could see at least two good proposals for fabrication and OSAT (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) in the coming few months.
“This sector, a new industry for the country, will grow as a major contributor to the entire developing manufacturing base of electronics, telecom and defense electronics,” he added. Micron’s semiconductor plant plan, announced in June, begun construction in September 2023, and the pace of development has given a massive boost of confidence in India’s semiconductor mission, he said.
The design centre in Bengaluru will house about 3,000 engineers, focused on the design and development of semiconductor technology including 3D stacking, artificial intelligence and machine learning. This campus is part of AMD’s $400 million investment in India over next five years.
The centre will serve as a centre of excellence for the development of leadership products across high-performance CPUs for the data centre and PCs, gaming GPUs (graphics processing unit ), and adaptive SoCs (system-on-chip) and FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays) for embedded devices, AMD said.
Vaishnaw said, “India’s semiconductor program launched under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi lays strong emphasis on supporting the design and talent ecosystem for semiconductors. AMD setting up its largest design centre in Bengaluru is a testament to the confidence global companies have in India.”
The India Design Centre started in 2004, and currently 25% of AMD’s global workforce is located in India and they support the development of AMD leadership products for data centre, gaming, PC and embedded customers.