The Indian Express revealed on Sunday that Israel’s Tower Semiconductor has put in a bid to construct a $8 billion chip manufacturing plant in India. In order to implement its proposal, Tower plans to manufacture 40 and 65 nanometer chips domestically while pursuing government incentives.

One of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s top business priorities is semiconductor manufacturing, for which his administration unveiled a $10 billion plan in December 2021.

Russell C. Ellwanger, CEO of Tower Semiconductor, met with Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Information Technology, in October of last year. Israel’s ambassador to India, Naor Gilon, was also present during the meeting. Chandrasekhar claims that they spoke about the semiconductor relationship between Tower and India.

Tower Semiconductor is a member of the International Semiconductor Consortium (ISMC), which submitted an application to participate in India’s semiconductor programme in 2022. But at the time, Intel made a purchase proposal for Tower Semiconductor. The government was unsure about Intel’s intention to allow Tower to continue with the consortium once the acquisition was finalised, therefore this development caused the consortium’s application to be placed on hold.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger informed Business Today that the business has no immediate intentions to establish a foundry in India when he met with Prime Minister Modi and MeitY Minister Ashwani Vaishnav in 2022. However, the Ministry of Electronics and IT was in contact with Tower Semiconductors once more after the Intel-Tower Semiconductor agreement fell through.

However, why Towe Semiconductor?

Tower Semiconductor is a top foundry for high-end analogue semiconductor solutions, situated in Israel. Its area of expertise is producing analogue integrated circuits for over 300 clients globally, catering to expanding industries like consumer, automotive, medical, industrial, aerospace, and defence, among others.

According to TrendForce Q1-Q3 data, it ranks seventh globally in foundry revenue with $356 million, and its yearly revenue is probably well over $1 billion.

One foundry that has frequently volunteered to assist India in developing its semiconductor industry is Tower. Even in the 2013–14 fiscal year, IBM and Tower Semiconductor were partners in a technological consortium headed by the Jaypee Group.

The business extended its offer to collaborate on technology once more, this time with the International Semiconductor Consortium (ISMC), which had filed an application for a 65nm technology node analogue fab under India’s Rs 76,000 billion semiconductor incentive plan in February 2022.

In June of last year, US chipmaker Micron Technology announced plans to invest $825 million to establish a new manufacturing and testing plant in Gujarat. It stated that the new assembly and testing facility’s Phase I construction will start up in late 2024. The US company stated that it anticipated that Phase 2, which would entail building a facility of a size comparable to Phase 1, would begin in the latter part of the decade.

Ashwini Vaishnaw declared in January of this year that Micron would launch its first chip in the nation by December 2024.

(Adapted from IndiaToday.in)