PM Modi to inaugurate India's first semiconductor unit in Gujarat on 28 February

American chip maker Micron's high-end semiconductor fabrication plant at Gujarat's Sanand is India's first semiconductor fabrication plant.

Micron Semiconductor Technology India Pvt. Ltd. has invested Rs 22,516 crore in Sanand. The launch of this ATMP (Assembly, Testing, Marking and Packaging) facility in Gujarat marks the beginning of a new chapter in India's semiconductor journey, the company said in a statement.

Gujarat continues to lead India's semiconductor sector, and with the focused efforts of Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, Micron's plant in Sanand is on track to become operational on time. The ATMP facility will manufacture SSD Solid State Drive storage devices, as well as RAM type DRAM and NAND products. At present, 2,000 people are working.

Eventually, 5,000 direct employment opportunities will be created. According to the Micron team, Divyang (specially-abled) citizens are serving as operators and technicians, and the facility provides opportunities to skilled people from all sections of society.

Sanjay Mehrotra, Chairman, President and CEO of Micron Technology, stated that memory and storage are central to today's technology, particularly in the artificial intelligence (AI) field. He remarked that AI systems depend heavily on strong memory and storage support to function efficiently. As AI continues to deliver faster and real-time responses, the demand for more advanced memory solutions is steadily increasing.

The functioning of an ATMP plant begins with wafer chips. To understand this, it is important to first look at how semiconductor chips are made before they reach the ATMP facility. The process starts with sand, from which pure silicon is extracted.

The silicon is melted and shaped into a cylinder called an ingot. This ingot is then sliced into thin discs known as wafers. At the fabrication plant, electronic patterns are printed on these wafers, and multiple layers are added. Through a process called photolithography, these layers are carefully arranged to form transistors on the wafers. This is how memory is created, and memory circuits are built within the wafers. Finally, the wafers are cut into small square pieces, known as chips.

The chips then reach the ATMP plant. Here, they are first assembled. In the next stage, they undergo detailed testing to check speed, memory capacity and overall performance. After testing, the chips are marked with the necessary details and finally packaged and ready for the market.

The Sanand plant will manufacture integrated circuit packages, modules and solid state drives for the global market. It will receive advanced DRAM and NAND wafers from Micron's global factories and convert them into finished memory products. These products will support the rising demand for memory and storage solutions in the AI sector. (ANI)