Guwahati: The construction of Tata’s semiconductor unit with an investment of ₹ 27 thousand crores commenced today in Assam. The unit, which will create an end-to-end semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem in India, will generate 15,000 direct and 11-13,000 indirect jobs. Chief Minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma and Chairman of Tata Sons Limited N Chandrasekaran were present at the function to mark the commencement of construction.
Union Minister for Electronics & Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnav said the proposed capacity of this unit is 4.83 crore semiconductor chips per day. He pointed out that this unit will be the site for the development of indigenous advanced semiconductor packaging technologies including wire bond, flip chip and I-SIP (integrated system in package) technologies. He said all these three major technologies which will be deployed in this plant are being developed in India. “These technologies are extremely critical for key applications such as automotive (especially electric vehicles), communications, network infrastructure and others,” he said.
While highlighting the importance of the semiconductor industry as being a foundational one, Vaishnav said that employment opportunities in various upstream and downstream industries will also be created. He mentioned that 85,000 industry-ready workforce at B.Tech, M.Tech and PhD level in semiconductor chip design were being trained at 113 academic institutions across the country. He pointed out that nine of these were in Northeast – National Institute of Technology Silchar (Assam), National Institute of Technology Mizoram, National Institute of Technology Manipur, National Institute of Technology Nagaland, National Institute of Technology Agartala, National Institute of Technology Sikkim, and National Institute of Technology Arunachal Pradesh.
“Today’s announcement marks a significant milestone in accelerating the progress of North-East and realizing the Prime Minister of India’s vision of ‘Viksit Bharat, Viksit Northeast’,” he added.
The programme for the development of the semiconductors and display manufacturing ecosystem in India was notified on December 21, 2021, with a total outlay of ₹ 76,000 crore. In June 2023, the Union Cabinet also approved the proposal of Micron for setting up a semiconductor unit in Sanand, Gujarat where the construction work is in progress at present.
– global bihari bureau
