Foxconn, Vedanta committed to semicon mission, make in India: Vaishnaw

Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn and mining behemoth Vedanta are committed to the semiconductor mission and the Make-in-India programme of the country, Union Minister of Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Monday.

The comments came against the backdrop of Foxconn announcing pulling out of its semiconductor joint venture Vedanta Foxconn Semiconductors Private Limited. “Both the companies Foxconn and Vedanta are committed to India’s semiconductor mission and Make in India program,” Vaishnaw tweeted. Taiwan’s Foxconn has withdrawn from a USD 19.5 billion (about Rs 1.5 lakh crore) semiconductor joint venture with mining baron Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Ltd as the venture struggled to get a technology partner to make chips that are used in mobile phones to refrigerators and cars.

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In a statement, Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics maker, said it “has determined it will not move forward on the joint venture with Vedanta.” Agarwal’s metals-to-oil conglomerate responded, saying it was “fully committed to its semiconductor fab project and we have lined up other partners to set up India’s first foundry.” It however did not give details of the new partners. The JV had announced to set up of India’s first electronic chip manufacturing unit in Gujarat with an investment of around Rs 1.5 lakh crore. India at present imports all electronic chips that are vital for manufacturing high tech electronic products like mobile phones, electric vehicles, computers etc.

Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said Foxconn’s decision to pull out of Vedanta joint venture has no impact on India’s semiconductor fabrication plant goal as both the companies had no prior semiconductor experience or technology and were expected to source fabrication tech from a tech partner. “While their JV VFSL had originally submitted a proposal for 28nm fab, they could not source an appropriate Tech partner for that proposal,” the minister said. He said that Vedanta through JV VFSL has recently submitted a 40 nm fab proposal backed by a technology licensing agreement from a Global Semicon major – which is currently being evaluated by the government’s Semicon India Tech Advisory group.