Tower-Adani JV to set up $10 bn semiconductor unit in Maharashtra: Fadnavis

The proposed semiconductor manufacturing plant, located in the Navi Mumbai suburbs in Raigad district, will have an initial capacity of 40,000 WSPM in the first phase, with an ultimate capacity of 80,

A committee of the Maharashtra Cabinet on Thursday approved an investment proposal worth Rs 83,947 crore ($10 billion ) for a joint venture (JV) between Tower Semiconductor and the Adani Group. The JV aims to establish a semiconductor chip manufacturing facility at Taloja in Panvel, as announced by the state's Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

The proposed semiconductor manufacturing plant, located in the Navi Mumbai suburbs in Raigad district, will have an initial capacity of 40,000 wafer starts per month (WSPM) in the first phase, with an ultimate capacity of 80,000 WSPM. Of the total investment, Rs 58,763 crore will be allocated for the first phase, while the remaining Rs 25,184 crore will be invested in the second phase, Fadnavis said.

As of yet, neither Tower Semiconductor nor the Adani Group have issued any official statements on the matter.

Although the project has received state-level approval, a joint application submitted by Israel’s Tower Semiconductor and the Adani Group is still under review by the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) and the IT Ministry, as reported by The Economic Times citing anonymous sources.

India's second chip manufacturing unit

If approved, this project would be India’s second chip manufacturing facility and the sixth semiconductor plant in the country, focused on either manufacturing, testing, or packaging silicon chips.

Earlier this week, the Union Cabinet approved a Rs 3,307 crore proposal for an outsourced assembly and testing (OSAT) unit from Kaynes Semicon, a Mysore-based company. This unit will be set up in Sanand, Gujarat, with a daily production capacity of 6.3 million chips.

India currently has five government-approved semiconductor projects. In addition to a chip fabrication unit being constructed in Dholera, Gujarat, four chip packaging facilities are under development. Three of these packaging units are in Sanand, Gujarat, while one is being built in Morigaon, Assam. The total proposed investment in these facilities is Rs 1.5 trillion.

The Dholera chip fabrication unit is a joint venture between the Tata Group and Taiwan's Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, with a capacity of 50,000 WSPM.