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India is set to enter the league of top five semiconductor producers over the next five years, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday.
Speaking at the Times Now Summit 2024, the Minister for Communications and Electronics and IT said this rapid progress in precision technology such as semiconductors is because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's focus on setting up the entire semiconductor ecosystem in India, not just plants, and taking a long-term approach. "I must have personally met about 45 companies, CEOs and CTOs. We asked them every detail needed to set up this new industry. There are over 250 chemicals and gases which go into semiconductor manufacturing. We have four units where the construction work is going on," he said. On March 13, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stones for three new chip plants - two in Gujarat and one in Assam. Tata Group is setting up two of these three plants. These three plants will have an investment of about Rs 1.25 lakh crore. The semiconductor industry in India is still at a nascent stage, with various local and multinational companies intending to tap its vast potential. Tata Group hopes that the commercial production of semiconductors chips at the two plants - in Gujarat and Assam, would start in 2026. Chip shortages during Covid highlighted the importance of indigenous manufacturing to fill the deficiency for national security and also to galvanise indigenous innovation. Meanwhile, American chip maker Micron's high-end semiconductor fabrication plant at Gujarat's Sanand, which is India's first, is coming up at a rapid pace. It is expected to be operational in late 2024. In total, work on four semiconductor units is currently underway - 3 in Gujarat and 1 in Assam. On March 19, Ashwini Vaishnaw had asserted that by the end of this year India would witness the launch of the first indigenous semiconductor chip. Semiconductors are crucial for modern society and are needed for manufacturing an array of devices including phones, medical devices, cars and electronic gadgets. As per media reports, approximately 70 percent of total manufacturing capacity is concentrated in South Korea, Taiwan, and China, the US, and Japan. During the event on Thursday, Vaishnaw also said that iPhone manufacturing in India was practically negligible 10 years ago. However, now it is USD 110 billion. He noted that Apple is hiring more than one lakh persons to work in the factories of Apple iPhone manufacturers in India. Apple is manufacturing its latest iPhone versions in India. (ANI)
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