“A few have expressed interest in engaging, and have started coming to test our stuff here. That process is encouraging for us. So, it is going to be what those customers want to package here, in addition to the focus on consumer, industrial and automotive (semiconductor chips),” Subbiah told Business Standard, on the sidelines of the recently concluded 2025 edition of Semicon India.
Potential customers for Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) and Assembly, Testing, Marking, and Packaging (ATMP) plants typically do not engage in a serious conversation until the semiconductor chips packaged from these units can be qualified, tested on the client’s standards, and then scaled to a commercial level, he added.
“Now, we have a plant that we can show them. That is the exciting part. It is a plant that is already working and is already qualifying chips for our largest customer, Renesas. So now, the others are also coming. Hopefully, we will also get a few of them to start the qualification process,” he said.
The Sanand facility, where CG Power’s CG Semi plans to invest up to ₹7,600 crore, is being built in partnership with Renesas Electronics Corporation and Thailand’s Stars Microelectronics.
CG Semi, which recently launched India’s first end-to-end semiconductor chip OSAT pilot line, expects to commence commercial production of chips from its G1 facility in Sanand. The construction of the G2 facility, situated three kilometres away, is also expected to be completed by the end of 2026. Once the construction of the G2 facility is complete, the chips produced from that plant will undergo qualification by end-customers. The production of chips from that plant will commence soon after the qualification process, Subbiah said.
“Quality is a required metric. If you do not achieve the necessary quality and yield, you will not even get to sit at the table. Once you achieve both quality and yield, the following steps focus on the cost and effectiveness of the supply chain. Those are also extremely important,” he said.
The pilot line, inaugurated in August this year, has a capacity of 0.5 million chips per day, while the under-construction G2 facility is expected to have a peak capacity of 14.5 million chips per day. A total of nearly 200 people, including several expatriates, are currently working on the pilot line and the G1 facility.
Overall, CG Power expects to employ approximately 2,500 people directly at the G1 and G2 facilities once commercial production from both starts, Subbiah said.
 "Vellayan Subbiah")