Korean company drops India fab plan, report says
SOURCE: EETimes
DATE: January 22nd, 2008
ARTICLE
Plans for India’s first semiconductor fabrication facility have reportedly been scrapped, with the plant now expected to manufacture solar cells.
Nano-Tech Silicon India Pvt. Ltd. was to have been India’s first major chip fab, but a report from Hyderabad by the The Economic Times said the facility will instead be used to manufacture photovoltaic modules and cells.
According to the report on Monday (Jan. 21), South Korean promoter June Min was to have invested $600 million in the chip project. He had also signed an agreement with the regional government of Andhra Pradesh. Ground was broken for the facility in June 2005 at Shamshabad in southern India, where the proposed Fab City is planned.
The report said Nano-Tech executives could not find a technology partner for the fab facility and failed to raise the capital needed to launch it.
Samsung Engineering was to have supervised construction of the facility. June Min had also mentioned IBM as a possible technology and financial partner in the facility. Intel executives had met with the regional government and were said to be interested in acquiring equity in the project. Intel eventually passed on the plan.
Nano-Tech had planned to develop standard IC products and chip sets for digital video disk players, wireless handsets and color TVs, among other products.
Abandonment of the project would be another blow for Indian efforts to launch a domestic chip industry. Observers had been skeptical about the proposal, noting that Nano-Tech would have trouble finding a technology partner and funding.
No relate
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Leave a Reply