Vedanta Group is in active negotiations with smartphone brands Oppo and Vivo, laptop manufacturers and electronic device makers for the semiconductor chips it plans to roll out of its soon-to-be-announced semiconductor plant in India, business unit chief Akarsh Hebbar told ET.In January, Vedanta had announced a tieup with Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn for a multi-billion dollar semiconductor manufacturing plan that would draw on the Centre’s $10-billion incentive package unveiled late last year.
“We have started talking to customers and developing MoUs with them,” Akarsh Hebbar, Vedanta‘s global managing director of display and semiconductor business division, told ET.
While Hebbar qualified these conversations as “preliminary”, he said brands such as Oppo and Vivo and some in the automotive sectors have shown significant interest in semiconductor wafers.He said smart phones utilize wafers in the 28-65 nm category, besides the other appliances, and Vedanta’s interest areas also focus on the segment.
Emails queries sent to Oppo and Vivo remained unanswered till as of press time.
Although Vedanta has tied up with Foxconn, which is one of Apple’s largest suppliers, supplying chips to Apple is not the immediate target for the company since Apple phones require chips smaller in size. But Hebbar said that 28 to 22 nm nodes that they are planning to build initially will find use by other smartphone makers.
Having an end customer for its chips will also give the government more confidence as it evaluates its proposal for subsidy, sources within the government said.
On Foxconn, Hebbar said the Taiwanese company makes semiconductor chips in the 45-68 nm segment but it is a much smaller portion of the $215 billion consolidated sales of the company.
He said Vedanta is hopeful that once the plant is announced and associated work commences, there will more interest from the chip consumer ecosystem, like device makers.
The group is talking to several states, including Gujarat, Maharashtra and Telangana, to set up its semiconductor plant in India.Hebbar said Vedanta has made technical assessments of the offer made by Gujarat, Maharashtra and Telangana, qualifying them as “attractive.”
For a semiconductor plant, high-fidelity power, water supply and talent pool are crucial, which would weigh on Vedanta as it decides to set up its plant.
The Centre has said it will contribute up to 50% of the project cost under its Rs 76,000-crore Semicon India Programme, under which ISMC Digital recently announced it was setting up a plant in Karnataka. The Singapore-based IGSS is the other applicant for semiconductor fab incentives under the scheme.
An advisory committee set up by the electronics and IT ministry, comprising pioneers such as Intel veteran Vinod Dham, would contribute to the effort, announced in December 2021 to boost indigenuous semiconductor manufacturing.
https://cfo.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/vedanta-in-active-negotiations-with-oppo-vivo-on-semiconductor-deals/91506852
