Orbit Ventures Fund is Mumbai-based fund which plans to invest $15 billion in India to manufacture chips. It has formed a consortium with partners that include wafer foundries, Indian corporates, PSUs to invest $3 billion to manufacture analogue chips in Dholera, Gujarat. There are two other ventures — one to make digital chips in collaboration with a foundry in Taiwan, and the other to manufacture memory chips in collaboration with IDM fabLess. The name of this company is ISMG Analog Fab which has applied to set up a semiconductor eco-system.ISMG Analog Fab has tied up with Tower Semiconductor, Israel-based, which is taken over by Intel. ISM is short for India Semiconductor Mission.

There are other three companies — Vedanta (with Foxconn) and IGSS Ventures (Singapore-based) and ICMC. ISMC has submitted a proposal for semiconductor fabs. ISMC plant will initially make 65 nanometre chips, which will go down to 45 nanometres. It will have a capacity to make 40,000 Wafer Start Per Month (WSPM). It accounts for 20 per cent of country’s market.

They will have a tie-up and support with Assembly, Testing, Marking and Packaging (ATMP) and Printed Circuit Board (PCB) players to build a semiconductor ecosystem. Commercialisation of plant will take 4-5 years which is the global standard.

The company has applied under the semiconductor incentive scheme. In the first round, there are five applications.

A jewellery firm Rajesh Exports is another company to have applied under the incentive scheme. They have set up ELEST which plans to set up a display fabrication plant. It will further advance to a state-of-the-art AMOLED display panels. Vedanta too has applied to set up LCD display facility.

Under the incentive scheme, the government is offering 30-50 per cent of the capital cost of the project.

Three companies have submitted proposals for semiconductor fabs and two companies for display fabs. The total investment amounts to $20.5 billion.