印度拟投资50亿美元建芯片厂 重振IC业

印度政府宣布将重新支持在印度建立半导体集成电路制造业的努力，其中包括建设2座投资总额为50亿美元的芯片生产厂。印度政府称最终的投资和政府资助方案将通过和有过各方的谈判来确定。新成立的一个由官员和专家组成的政府委员会（Empowered Committee）将对相关技术和投资方进行评估。

印度此前的努力并没有吸引到主流的芯片公司到印度去设厂，曾经的两家较小的投资案（SemIndia 和Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp）并没有真正从事半导体芯片的制造，而是转向了光伏领域产品的生产。

原文：India preps $5 billion two-fab plan

Peter Clarke

LONDON – The Indian government has announced renewed efforts to try and create a chip manufacturing industry on the sub-continent and is looking for investment of about $5 billion to build two wafer fabs.

The exact level of government support for the plan would be finalized by way of negotiations with interested parties. This is set to happen after a report has been produced by the newly-formed Empowered Committee for identifying technology and investors for Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication （Fab） Manufacturing Facilities， the Indian government said in a statement.

The Empowered Committee is composed mainly of political appointments but is expected to co-opt industry experts and is due to report back to government by July 31， 2011.

The committee has been chartered with identifying the sources of technology and potential investors for the establishment of at least two wafer fabs and to recommend the nature and size of government support. This could be in the form of an equity position， grants and financial support.

The Indian government argues in its statement that the lack of domestic chip making and reliance on chips made overseas is serving as a bottleneck on the development of complete electronic systems within India. The argument continues that the creation of wafer fabs would have a “catalytic impact on the development downstram and upstream products.” The government estimates that the creation of a chipmaking industry within India will help create 30 million direct and indirect jobs by 2020.

However， India has been here before and failed to attract any chip manufacturers to set up shop. In the middle part of the last decade a group of Silicon Valley based Indian ex-patriates created Semindia before transforming that company into a supplier of communications equipment. Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. selected Infineon Technologies AG as a partner to help it put down two fabs in Fab City industrial park near Hyderabad in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Neither SemIndia nor HSMC has put down wafer fabs and the government-backed Fab City has drifted towards a focus on solar energy. It was not discussed whether Fab City would still be a preferred location for the creation of chip manufacturing under the renewed plan.