Micron India is aiming to release the initial set of chips packaged at its Sanand facility in Gujarat by the beginning of next year. The majority of these semiconductor chips will be designated for export, the company’s India managing director Anand Ramamoorthy has said.
Ramamoorthy informed ET that while the domestic demand for semiconductor chips is increasing, the total addressable market for India remains relatively small in comparison to the global demand for semiconductors. He spoke at a company event in the city where partnerships with higher education institutes were announced by the company.
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“No factory for India will ever be making only for India. It will be a small part, and the bulk of it will be for exports. A factory supporting India’s customers is a thing of convenience. But the factory becoming truly global in terms of turnaround time, cost structure, and quality speaks a lot more,” he said.
Ramamoorthy also said that the chips to be packaged at the Sanand unit will mainly be utilized in data centers, smartphones, notebooks, internet-of-things devices, and the automotive segments.
According to Ramamoorthy, the demand in India will be influenced by the product offering of domestic chip foundries, including the one established by the Tata Group in partnership with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation.
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Micron will consider serving all sectors. The demand-supply chain dynamics will depend on various factors like inventory, turnaround time, pricing, customers’ needs, and their inventory positions.
“We have to be very agile and nimble. It is not like if we make a chip today, it is pre-decided that it will be used in a specific sector. Those specifics can be moved very quickly. That is the beauty and challenge in our business,” he said.
In 2023, Micron announced its plan to establish a semiconductor chip assembly and testing facility in Sanand, Gujarat. The total investment in the plant, which was India’s first semiconductor chip packaging unit at that time, is planned to be $2.75 billion, with the company investing $825 million.
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The company, headquartered in Idaho, has a global workforce of over 40,000 people, with approximately 4000 employees at its research and development centres in Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Micron intends to increase the number of employees in India to 5000 and anticipates the creation of approximately 15,000 indirect jobs in the coming years.
All the employees recruited by Micron India for the research and development centers in Hyderabad and Bengaluru undergo different training sessions, which also include training at its global centers in the United States, Japan, and China. Moving forward, the company is eager to uphold its reputation of recruiting recent college graduates, who constitute up to 30% of its overall workforce in research and development operations in India, as mentioned by him.
“The interesting part here is that talent shortage is a global phenomenon. It is often mentioned that India faces a talent shortage. However, that is not true. This holds true for every country. Cybersecurity, semiconductors and others are niche emerging sectors that will always have a global supply shortage in terms of talent,” Ramamoorthy said.
