 "Odisha identifies 1K acres for semiconductor cluster; work to begin soon")
The Odisha government has identified a 1,000-acre area near the Bhubaneswar airport to establish a greenfield semiconductor and electronics manufacturing cluster, which will house the two new chip manufacturing and assembly units of SicSem and 3D Glass Solutions, the state’s Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Mukesh Mahaling, said.
In an exclusive interaction with Business Standard, Mahaling said that the state government had initiated discussions with engineering experts from Malaysia for the new manufacturing cluster, and construction would commence soon.
“The foundation stone for SicSem will be laid in October, and they will start the construction soon. We have already identified the land parcel for them, and the statutory compliance, as well as due diligence, is currently underway,” Mahaling said.
He added: “Though it takes two years for an ATMP or compound semiconductor unit to start production from the pilot line, we aim to complete the process in 18 months.”
In August this year, the Union Cabinet approved two semiconductor projects to be set up at Bhubaneswar-- a Silicon Carbide (SiC)-based compound semiconductor fabrication unit, which will also have an assembly, testing, marking, packaging, (ATMP) unit, and a separate ATMP project.
The first project, which has both the Silicon Carbide compound semiconductor fabrication unit and the ATMP unit will be set up by SiCSem. It will have a chip fabrication capacity of 60,000 wafer starts per year, while the ATMP plant will have capacity of 96 million units per year.
The second project will be set up by New Mexico-headquartered 3D Glass Solutions, which will establish the ATMP plant with an annual capacity of 50 million units, in addition to manufacturing 70,000 glass panels annually.
The Odisha state government is also in talks with industrial gas suppliers, chemical manufacturers and other raw material manufacturing companies to build the complete ecosystem for SiCSem and 3D Glass Solutions, Mahaling said.
“So whatever tie-ups these companies already have, and other partnerships that they might need, those will be taken care of by the state government. We have identified the land parcels that these allied units will need,” he said.
The state government is also offering electricity to these units at a subsidised industrial rate, which is among the lowest in the country, the state’s minister said, adding that the new semiconductor policy would also aim to attract 100-120 chip design companies by 2030.