Powerchip to build India's first wafer foundry with Tata Electronics

Taipei, March 1 (CNA) Taiwan-based Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (PSMC) will team up with Tata Electronics to build India's first 12-inch wafer fab, with construction scheduled to begin this year, the company said in a statement Thursday.

The new fab, to be built in Dholera in the state of Gujarat, will make power management chips, display drivers, microcontrollers and high-performance computing logic ICs targeted at the automotive, artificial intelligence, data storage and computing, and wireless communications markets, the statement said.

PSMC Chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) said the collaboration between PSMC and the Tata Sons Group is timely because the world is at a pivotal point in the global restructuring of the high-tech supply chain.

Tata Electronics CEO Randhir Thakur said in the statement that through the cooperation with PSMC, Tata Electronics will be able to expand its technological reach and establish synergies among its manufacturing companies.

The company will also be able to achieve the goal of producing "Made in India" chips for both international customers and the rapidly growing domestic market, Thakur said.

The announcement came on the same day that the Indian government gave the green light to three semiconductor plants in India worth 1.26 trillion rupees (US$15.2 billion), including the planned project in Dholera, according to Reuters.

PSMC and Tata are expect to jointly invest US$11 billion in their plant in the state of Gujarat, Indian Electronics Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told Reuters.

The other two plants are a US$916 million chip packaging plant to be built by India's CG Power, Japan's Renesas Electronics Corp, and Thailand's Stars Microelectronics, and a US$3.26 billion chip packaging plant to be set up by Tata unit Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test Pvt Ltd, Vaishnaw said.

Powerchip is Taiwan's third-largest contract chip maker and the sixth-biggest in the world, while Tata Electronics is a venture of the Tata Sons group, which is India's largest corporation with revenue of US$150 billion in 2023.

Tata Sons Group Chairman N. Chandrasekaran said in the statement that the group has played a pioneering role in many industrial fields in India, and it will again be breaking new ground as the first company to delve into semiconductor fabrication.

Meanwhile, PSMC is planning to extend its reach to other overseas markets. In 2023, it announced a plan to invest in a joint venture with Japanese financial group SBI Holdings to build a 12-inch wafer foundry in Miyagi prefecture.

That foundry is scheduled to produce chips for automobiles beginning in 2027, according to previous media reports.