Construction of Micron’s $2.75 billion plant in Sanand begins – Times of India

AHMEDABAD: US-based Micron Technology on Saturday held the groundbreaking ceremony for its $2.75 billion (approximately Rs 22,540 crore) chip assembly and test facility in India. Micron’s Assembly, Test, Marking and Packaging (ATMP) facility will come up in Sanand GIDC-II industrial estate over a 93-acre land parcel, and is expected to be commissioned within 18 months.
The groundbreaking ceremony was held in presence of Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar. With this, the computer storage chip manufacturer will begin the construction of its semiconductor plant. The facility will focus on transforming wafers into Ball Grid Array (BGA) – integrated circuit packages, memory modules and solid-state drives.
An initial investment of $875 million will go into the establishment of the plant in two phases. The remaining investment will be supported by the state and central governments.
The combined investment is projected to create around 5,000 direct jobs and offer 15,000 community job opportunities over the next five years.
“Micron groundbreaking ceremony is a beacon of growth and evolution of the semiconductor ecosystem in India to other prospective investors in this sector. The Micron facility in Gujarat marks the beginning of an exciting journey in India’s semiconductor ecosystem, in making India a semiconductor nation. The digital economy will contribute 20% to the gross domestic product. This ceremony is a big milestone in India’s journey,” said Chandrasekhar.
The minister also outlined a number of incentives that are rolled out by the Union government to support semiconductor investments here.
“We are straddling both sides of the semiconductor ecosystem. We are now expanding the DLI (design linked incentive) scheme to include foreign companies that will partner with Indian startups to design in India,” he further went on to say.
According to the minister, over the next decade India will reach a stage where several countries have failed to reach despite huge sums of investment.
“More applications for semiconductor manufacturing in the country are being processed. Leading semiconductor companies like Qualcomm and Nvidia don‘t have semiconductor manufacturing plants but are valued more than those who make wafers. Foreign companies will get grants under the DLI scheme only if the intellectual property right is registered in India. The government is also considering setting up a GPU (graphics processing unit) cluster to support the development of artificial intelligence technology in the country,” Chandrasekhar said.