Chip Dreams

While investments in the semiconductor space have been welcomed, persistence will be key

- NIDHI SINGAL

EXACTLY ONE YEAR, five months, and 22 days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Cabinet unveiled the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to boost the semiconductor ecosystem in India, news came of a company committing to build a $2.7-billion assembly and testing unit in Gujarat. This isn't the first such application received under the scheme. What makes it special is the company involved: US-headquartered Micron Technology, which makes its own chips and packages, tests them, and directly sells to electronics product companies.

More importantly, Micron will enable assembly and testing of both DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) and NAND flash memory products, which can practically go into every type of use case from mobiles to laptops, cars, data centres and more. "Our new assembly and test location in India will enable Micron to expand our global manufacturing base and better serve our customers in India and around the world," Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of Micron Technology, had said when the deal was announced.