Foxconn has pulled out of a proposed plan to build ac $19.5 billion semiconductor and displays plant with with Indian conglomerate Vedanta. Foxconn has pulled out leaving Vedanta with 100% ownership of the project.
The collapse follows another stalled Indian chip initiative – the ISMC jv between Tower Semiconductor and the investment fund New Orbit Ventures to set up a $3 billion analogue chip plant in India which ran into problems when Tower was bought by Intel and New Orbit Ventures sold its stake in the project.
A third semiconductor initiative led by IGSS Ventures of Singapore to build a $3.5 billion fab in Tamil Nadu, India also appears to be on hold.
The initiatives followed a plan by the Indian government to invest $10 billion in semiconductor projects.
The Foxconn-Vedanta jv appears to have fallen through because of approval delays by the Indian government and the reluctance of ST to join the jv as an investing partner.
Although willing to license technology to the project, ST was apparently unwilling to buy a stake in it.
Micron has said it is willing to put up to $825 million into a chip testing and packaging unit supported by government funds and costing a total of $2.75 billion.
In 2007 the Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company announced a plan to build two fabs running a 130nm process licensed from Infineon. It was to be the first of a planned ten fabs in what was being called ‘Fab City’. ‘Others involved in the project were Siemens, MW Zander, the clean-room specialists, and US Liquids.
Also in 2007, both AMD and Intel showed interest in investing in SemIndia which would build three fabs in India.
All these initiatives fell through.
