Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: India’s first commercial chip fabrication plant — the Tata Electronics–PSMC project at Dholera in Gujarat — has crossed the halfway mark in construction, with cleanroom installation and equipment calibration under way as it targets trial production and first silicon by late 2026.
The fab is a roughly ₹91,000 crore (about $11 billion) undertaking designed for up to 50,000 wafers a month, starting on 28-nanometre chips and advancing to 22nm, for uses spanning electric vehicles, telecom, automotive and power electronics. It is expected to support more than 20,000 skilled jobs. Nearer term, assembly-and-test plants from Micron and Kaynes Semicon are already running at Sanand, part of a roadmap of four plants operational by end-2026 and two more in 2027.
First silicon is a threshold, not a finish line — but crossing it would move India from packaging chips to actually making them.
At a Glance
- Project: Tata–PSMC fab, Dholera; construction past halfway
- Target: Trial production / first silicon late 2026
- Scale: ~₹91,000 cr ($11bn); up to 50,000 wafers/month; 28nm→22nm
- Jobs: 20,000+; Micron & Kaynes ATMP live at Sanand
The honest challenge is depth: India still imports most chipmaking equipment and materials, and a full front-end capability is a patient, capital-intensive build. Yields, water and power reliability, and a trained workforce all have to come together for a fab to run at scale.
The constructive read is that the base of the value chain is being laid in India, plant by plant. Assembly at Sanand today and fabrication at Dholera tomorrow are the sequence on which a durable domestic chip industry — and its jobs — are built.
