New Delhi [India], May 5 (ANI): The Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved two new semiconductor manufacturing units under India Semiconductor Mission (ISM), marking the last two projects of ISM 1.0 with a cumulative investment of over Rs 3,900 crore. The approvals include the country's first commercial Mini/Micro-LED display facility based on GaN technology and a semiconductor packaging facility in Gujarat.

Briefing reporters on the decisions of the Union Cabinet, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said ISM 1.0 was launched in 2022.

The two approved proposals will set up semiconductor manufacturing facilities in Gujarat with a cumulative investment of around Rs 3,936 crore and are expected to generate cumulative employment for 2,230 skilled professionals.

The Cabinet has approved the establishment of an OSAT (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test) facility in Surat, Gujarat, with a total project cost of Rs 868 crore.

This facility will be implemented by Suchi Semicon Private Limited (SSPL). The unit will focus on producing Lead Frame and Wirebond Packaging semiconductors, which will be used in a variety of applications, including air conditioners, televisions, mobile phones, laptops, electric vehicle battery management systems, motor controllers, solar inverters, and more.

The capacity of the facility includes 673 million units per year for Small Outline Integrated Circuits (SOIC) and 263 million units per year for Transistor Outline (TO). Additionally, the project is expected to provide direct employment to 630 individuals.

The details of the two approved proposals are as follows:

(1) Crystal Matrix Limited (CML) will establish an integrated facility for compound semiconductor fabrication and ATMP in Dholera, Gujarat, for manufacturing Mini/Micro-LED display modules. The integrated facility will also provide GaN foundry services, including epitaxy on 6' wafers. The annual proposed production capacity for Mini/Micro-LED Display Panels is 72,000 sq. meters, and for Mini-Micro-LED GaN Epitaxy Wafers is 24,000 sets of RGB wafers. The proposed products will have applications in large displays for TVs and signage/commercial displays, Medium-sized displays for tablets, smartphones, and in-car displays, and Micro-displays for Extended Reality (XR) glasses and smart watches.

(2) Suchi Semicon Private Limited (SSPL) will be setting up an Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) facility in Surat, Gujarat, for manufacturing discrete semiconductors. The proposed production capacity of the Suchi Semicon is 1033.20 million chips per annum. The target applications include power electronics, analogue ICs, and industrial systems, serving end markets such as automotive, industrial automation, and consumer electronics. The facility will produce lead frame and wirebond packaging conductors. It will be used for electronic appliances such as air conditioners, TV, mobile, laptop, EV battery management, etc. The cabinet added that the project will provide direct employment to 630 people.

With these two approvals, the semiconductor ecosystem in the country would get a significant boost as the total number of approved projects under the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) reaches 12, with cumulative investments of around Rs 1.64 lakh crore, a release said.

These would complement the growing world-class chip design capabilities coming up in the country, which are propelled by design infrastructure support provided by the Government to 315 academic institutions and 104 start-ups.

Momentum is building up further in the semiconductor ecosystem in India, with the ten approved projects already in various stages of execution. Two projects have already started commercial shipments from India, and two more are expected to start commercial shipments soon, the release added. (ANI)