Updated: India again seeks help with fabs

6/23/2011 2:30 PM EDT

This article stinks of sarcasm and a negative bias towards Indian semiconductor industry. If the authors do not believe in what they are posting then why bother unless they want to be the electronics community's version of a tabloid. There's no denying that the Indian efforts in establishing fabs is a quagmire of bureaucracy and poor planning but I am sure they did not approach EEtimes to market their idea.

6/23/2011 8:08 PM EDT

Too many mosquitoes in India to set up a cleanroom there. Don't the bureaucrats know this?

6/24/2011 12:36 AM EDT

The article does shows a smack of sarcasm but its the way a country wants to go about fabs. The authors as an individual would have sometime in their life too would have made an attempt to learn something and surely people would have mocked at them. This is precisely what is happening with India, it is learning new technologies and creating a market. Make no mistake the many companies from your country will be more than willing and queuing up to set up their shop once this is achieved.

Secondly, I do not know understand what mosquitoes got to do with setting up a cleanroom. Mosquitoes are a problem anywhere - whether its India or America or any part of world.
So el

6/24/2011 12:55 AM EDT

If too many bed bugs cant be a problem in america then too many mosquitoes will surely not be a problem in India

6/24/2011 2:49 AM EDT

I do not understand the need for Indian Govt to seek to set up a fab in India. When the world trend is for Fab-less design. India can as well do without a fab. So many foundries exist today worldwide that India is better off using their capacities and concentrate more on design where India has a huge qualified manpower and design expertise. If there is a sufficient pull the private industry giants like Tata, Birla and Ambani have sufficient financial muscle and project execution skills to set up such Fabs in India. It is definitely not the Indian government's cup of tea.

6/24/2011 3:12 AM EDT

India needs semiconductor process technology for strategic reasons

6/24/2011 8:09 AM EDT

we have thousands of electronics engineers comming out each year ,and it is a dream of hundreads of engineers like me who are intrested in backend to actually work in the FAB unit . its a good move by the government , the only resource missing till date to setup a FAB was governments will. now with governments will clearly showcased i feel this will materialise .

6/24/2011 7:01 PM EDT

The world is shedding fabs, not building them, due to the outrageous upfront cost and the obsolescence two years down the road. If the bureaucrats are too stupid to see this, they are dumb enough to worry about mosquitoes, which you can see. even for "strategic" military purposes, you can inventory a bazillion finished wafers for the cost of a modern fab.

6/27/2011 1:23 AM EDT

Do they want to build a museum or a fab? It makes sense to use the existing fabs around the world instead of trying to build a new one, which may become 'productive' in 2020, maybe 2050 given the 'hurdles'. It is sheer nonsense just like aspiring for a F1 circuit in India :o It doesnt help/benefit anyone, definitely not the Govt.

6/27/2011 2:14 AM EDT

They can be smart about this.

For example, wait until NGL status is clearer in four or five years, in the meantime working on some key strategic techs like TSVs, solar, LEDs, MEMs, etc.

6/27/2011 4:20 PM EDT

China has 5 state of the art fabs, India - 0.

Just like Indians to fight amongst themselves instead of taking on the competition.

6/27/2011 9:33 PM EDT

India has a lot of engineering talent. I think they have many opportunities to help their country become a better place and grow to become a great country. I don't think building a fab is the best use of the talent.

6/28/2011 9:17 PM EDT

I would suggest that if it made economic sense then a fab would be built, otherwise it could be an expensive project. On the other hand, it would have been nice to have alternate fab sources as insurance against earthquakes prone Japan given the significant numbers of fabs there. Perhaps, some automakers would be interested in setting up fabs in India as a hedge against natural or man made disasters? Just a though.

6/29/2011 3:37 PM EDT

The new agency is not chartered to help set up many fabs. It would be a strategic step in the technology ecosystem of the country to have at least one semiconductor wafer fab. facility. It will boost the semiconductor design/electronics design community too. I agree there is a sense of dis-belief and bias to the article, but Indian Govt. and its policies have long been too farcical and one would expect such skepticism from even the most neutral observers.

7/1/2011 5:50 AM EDT

After recent earthquakes in Japan , they must be planning to derisk future Semiconductor production by shifting some of the fabs out of Japan . Indian government should approach top Japanese Semiconductor manufacturers to relocate some of their fabs to India . This will be a win-win situation for India and Japan . India will not start from scratch for their fabs and Japan will find a place for its fab which is less earthquake prone. Additionally , Japan can try to get a big share of USD50 billion Indian Semiconductor market being projected.

7/5/2011 3:29 AM EDT

India is geographically a big country and it is possible to identify areas which are less prone to earthquake.In fact even Taiwan fabs like TSMC,UMC are also in earthquake prone zone and even they can move some production to India.

7/5/2011 3:36 AM EDT

Link for my earlier comment of Taiwan fabs being in earthquake prone zone

http://news.softpedia.com/news/TSMC-Affected-by-Taiwan-Earthquake-136751.shtml

7/8/2011 5:42 AM EDT

Building a fab is one thing. Running it is a whole new beast. India does not have enough chip engineers and technicians who specialise in process engineering, lithography, yield analysis, package development et al. Not to forget the kind of management expertise required to keep a fab operating at optimum efficiency. India should continue concentrating on becoming a centre of excellence for chip designs.

7/9/2011 12:56 AM EDT

Fabs Going Nowhere in India. Like many major projects in India, they wasted so much time, resources,efforts, one delay after another, and
These turning point projects in India ended up in the hands of incompetent people with strong connections.
The India Semiconductor Association (ISA) is a disgrace to India along with their credibility. Everybody made little money but nothing accomplished.
Building fabs and expertise are complex with huge challenges. It takes some time and right investment with a right people who believe and share their vision. ISA loved to hear sugarcoated solutions with promises. As a result, most of them fail from the beginning. Assume that ISA getting to the next level, some money goes into project will disappear. India will never have a solid project at the end. Vendors and partners will get sue.
Nobody wants to set up fab in India anymore.

7/12/2011 11:24 AM EDT

@babayan

But there has been a great diaspora of Indian engineers and experts. Across all the chip companies of the world I would expect there are more than a few of Indian origin. It may only take a handful with experience of working in fabs to bring the skills back to India and start training workers.

I would expect that at least some of the skilled engineers that Abu Dhabi is intent on training will come from India. And they may end up working in a wafer fab in Abu Dhabi.

So why not believe something similar can be achieved in India.

7/12/2011 3:28 PM EDT

The Indian government is up to no good and wants to hide some evil things, that they'd like to make in silicon, from the Chinese. Indians can hire only Indians - the rest of the world have Chinese eyes in EVERY fab. There is no other sane reason than an insane motive.
As far as the postings here go, if you have a short penis, a fab won't fix it. Neither will "marking" your territory by lifting your leg up, especially when you are downwind from your goal.

7/13/2011 2:17 AM EDT

India is a huge Electronics market for all kind of things like Consumer ,Networking ,Storage ,Telecom, Defense etc with almost zero local manufacturing . Business needs will force majority of these to be manufactured locally and that means more than USD20 billion worth Semiconductor too . It is not necessary that Indian fabs should be started and run by Indians alone and that is the reason govt is looking for partners . Additionally , as Peter suggested requisite talent is already available with ethnic Indian working globally and it is very much possible to bring them back on something which is very promising .