Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) yesterday said that it signed an agreement with Tata Electronics Pvt Ltd to help build India’s first 12-inch chip manufacturing facility with a total investment of US$11 billion.
As part of the agreement, Powerchip would provide Tata with access to mature technology nodes and help to train Indian workers, the Taiwanese company said in a statement.
The fab would be located in Dholera, Gujarat. It would have a capacity of 50,000 wafers per month and create 20,000 jobs in the region, Powerchip said.
Photo courtesy of Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp
Tata would receive access to a broad technology portfolio of leading-edge and mature nodes, including 28, 40, 55, 90 and 110-nanometer technologies, as well as collaboration in high-volume manufacturing.
The new fab is to manufacture chips for applications such as power management ICs, display driver ICs, microcontrollers and high-performance computing chips. These products are in high demand in the automotive, computing and data storage, wireless communications and artificial intelligence sectors, it said.
Powerchip told investors in July that any overseas technology partnerships would be based on the condition that they would generate new cash flow and have a positive impact on the company’s financial performance.
The news came after the US and India reached an agreement to work together on setting up a semiconductor fab in India, giving a boost to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to increase high-tech manufacturing in the country.
The proposed plant would make infrared, gallium nitride and silicon-carbide semiconductors, the White House said in a statement following a meeting between US President Joe Biden and Modi on Saturday last week.
Earlier this month, Indian Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the South Asian country is attempting to develop the entire chip value chain as India aims to increase its electronics sector to US$500 billion by the end of the decade.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Leading Taiwanese bicycle brands Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) and Merida Industry Co (美利達工業) on Sunday said that they have adopted measures to mitigate the impact of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The US announced at the beginning of this month that it would impose a 20 percent tariff on imported goods made in Taiwan, effective on Thursday last week. The tariff would be added to other pre-existing most-favored-nation duties and industry-specific trade remedy levy, which would bring the overall tariff on Taiwan-made bicycles to between 25.5 percent and 31 percent. However, Giant did not seem too perturbed by the
AI SERVER DEMAND: ‘Overall industry demand continues to outpace supply and we are expanding capacity to meet it,’ the company’s chief executive officer said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported that net profit last quarter rose 27 percent from the same quarter last year on the back of demand for cloud services and high-performance computing products. Net profit surged to NT$44.36 billion (US$1.48 billion) from NT$35.04 billion a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, net profit grew 5 percent from NT$42.1 billion. Earnings per share expanded to NT$3.19 from NT$2.53 a year earlier and NT$3.03 in the first quarter. However, a sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar since early May has weighed on the company’s performance, Hon Hai chief financial officer David Huang (黃德才)
NVIDIA FACTOR: Shipments of AI servers powered by GB300 chips would undergo pilot runs this quarter, with small shipments possibly starting next quarter, it said Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), which supplies artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp chips, yesterday said that AI servers are on track to account for 70 percent of its total server revenue this year, thanks to improved yield rates and a better learning curve for Nvidia’s GB300 chip-based servers. AI servers accounted for more than 60 percent of its total server revenue in the first half of this year, Quanta chief financial officer Elton Yang (楊俊烈) told an online conference. The company’s latest production learning curve of the AI servers powered by Nvidia’s GB200 chips has improved after overcoming key component
UNPRECEDENTED DEAL: The arrangement which also includes AMD risks invalidating the national security rationale for US export controls, an expert said Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) have agreed to pay 15 percent of their revenue from Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) chip sales to the US government in a deal to secure export licenses, an unusual arrangement that might unnerve both US companies and Beijing. Nvidia plans to share 15 percent of the revenue from sales of its H20 AI accelerator in China, a person familiar with the matter said. AMD is to deliver the same share from MI308 revenue, the person added, asking for anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The arrangement reflects US President Donald Trump’s consistent effort to engineer