THE TATA PUSH
India’s chip ecosystem gets a major boost as N. Chandrasekaran reveals the group’s plans
u It’s not just Vedanta, but also the Tata group that is keen on stepping into the semiconductor business. Tata Sons Chairman N. Chandrasekaran recently said that the company plans to use a part of its $90-billion investment over the next five years to set up ATMP and chip fabs. He also intends to foray into advanced chip manufacturing in a few years. The diversified conglomerate has recently appointed semiconductor industry veteran Randhir Thakur as the CEO & MD of Tata Electronics, a company with expertise in making precision electronics components. The greenfield chip business will also be housed under it, which has a manufacturing facility in the Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu. “We will start with manufacturing. Then we’ll get into assembly and packaging. The next stage will be semiconductor testing, then fabless, [where] we will do the design. And then, we get into fabs. Those are the stages of integration we will go through, but probably not for a very long period,” Chandrasekaran said at a BT event recently. As semiconductor manufacturing involves a big investment, he has already chalked out a plan. “We have got to make sure that we are doing the right thing and investing in the right node. And before we have our own architecture, we will have our own electronic/electrical architecture. And this will be for global markets.” He is also looking at acquisitions and collaborations. For instance, in June 2022, Japan–based Renesas Electronics that supplies advanced semiconductors, had tied up with two Tata group firms to develop chips for tech across automotive, IoT and 5G systems. It will also work with TCS to set up a development centre in Bengaluru. Whatever the node, with Tata bringing its heft into the chips industry, the ecosystem and job opportunities in the Indian market are up for a major boost.