Intel is considering India as a possible location for a
new chip manufacturing facility.
Intel is one of only two multinational semiconductor companies
to announce that it is evaluating setting up a fab in India. The
other, Cypress Semiconductor announced earlier this year that it
was considering setting up a facility to manufacture solar cells in
India.
Intel already does key semiconductor design work in the country
at a facility in Bangalore. Besides doing work on Intel's Centrino
mobile platform, the design centre is also designing a new 32-bit
microprocessor for the enterprise market, which is a follow-on
processor to the Xeon processor.
Although a number of multinational semiconductor companies, such
as Texas Instruments and Broadcom have chip design facilities in
India, they have been reluctant to set up fabs in India, in part
because of the country's poor infrastructure.
The VLSI (Very Large Scale Integrated) fabs already in the
country are run by government-owned companies, and use outdated
technologies and sub-optimal production scales.
Semiconductor Complex (SCL) in Chandigarh, for example, has a
6in wafer fabrication facility, capable of processing wafers in 0.8
micron technology. These facilities are primarily used by these
companies for pilot production runs of chips they design.
Intel and the country's ministry of communications and
information technology also signed an agreement to jointly develop
computing platforms aimed at taking information technology to rural
areas.
The Indian government and Intel will work on making broadband
wireless technologies affordable and viable as a "last mile" option
for rural service delivery.
Furthermore, Intel and the Indian government are setting up an
Open Source Resource Center to provide technical assistance and
support to Indian government projects on open-source platforms.
Intel will assist in building expertise in VLSI circuits design
through curriculum design, faculty development workshops and
research collaborations.
John Ribeiro writes for IDG News Service