"ST plans to set up chip manufacturing facility in India"
The Economic Times, Mayur Shekhar Jha & Krishna Kant, October 12, 2005
Co beats Intel At the Game, Buys 25 Acres In Noida For Rs 150 cr
New Delhi: Even as world’s largest semiconductor maker Intel is dilly-dallying on setting up a manufacturing facility in India, world’s number-two semi-conductor maker ST Microelectronics has gone ahead and acquired a 25-acre industrial property plot in greater Noida at a cost of over Rs 150 crore.
Though the company refused to share more details, sources say the European chip major is contemplating a full fledged chip manufacturing facility in India in view of the rapid growth in chip consuming industries in India including mobile phones, consumer electronics and automobiles.
“If electronic companies continue to set up manufacturing bases in India and expand their capacity to meet the burgeoning domestic demand, the semiconductor industry will receive an even greater boost,” says Vivek Sharma, vice president and director India Design Ccentre, STMicroelectronics India.
According to Mr. Shama, in the past high-end electronics manufacturing was not feasible in India due to the twin factors of lack of domestic demand and non-availability of quality engineers willing to stay back and work in India.
Currently, ST Microelectronics only has a chip designing facility at its existing carious development centres in India.
“The chip manufacturing involves four distinct process-project, design, back-end and testing. India is involved with the process only but we now want to move up the value chain.”
The Indian subsidiary is targeting an employee strength of 5000 by the end of March 2008. A majority of the new recruits will work from the newly acquired property which has been christened as Knowledge Park. The company employs 1500 professionals at its two development centres in Noida and Bangalore.
The new facility will partly get operational by the end of this calendar with a total built-up area of around 3.4 lakh square-feet. It will have three separate blocks for design, management and utilities respectively. The new unit will work on designing next-generation chips for digital cameras, set-top boxes and those used for facilitating the use of global positioning system in cars.
ST manufactures chips for many leding electronics, telecom equipment and automobile majors such as Nokia, Alcatel, Bosch, General Motors, Daimler Chrysler, Ford, Sony, Motorola, Nortel Networks, Philips and Siemens. The group has 16 manufacturing sites spread across France, Italy, USA and Singapore.
Besides, it has 16 advanced research and development units and 39 design and application centres across the globe. In 2004, ST's net revenues were $8,760 million (38,000 crore) and net earnings were $601 million (2600 crore)
Samsung plans mobile unit:
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics said on Tuesday it would establish a mobile handset production unit in India to tap into the country’s handset market. It will set up Samsung Telecommunications India near Delhi. Production will start early next year, the company said in Seoul.
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