Former TI executive plans to build first wafer fab in India with $1 billion investment

Foxconn plans to build 12 professional electronics foundries in India by 2020. Foxconn's return is good news for India. According to Prime Minister Modi's "Make in India" plan, India is currently vigorously developing its manufacturing industry. However, India's manufacturing industry has recently received good news. A former TI executive plans to invest $1 billion to build the first wafer factory in India, which is expected to start construction in 2016...

Cricket Semiconductor, a semiconductor company co-founded by two former Texas Instruments executives, plans to build a $1 billion analog and power semiconductor fab in India. Lou Hutter, one of the company's co-founders, said the fab will operate as a specialty foundry.

In an email interview with the editor of EETimes Europe, Hutter responded that Cricket Semiconductor's Indian wafer fab is expected to break ground in 2016 and start producing chips for customers in 2018. In addition, he also pointed out that although Cricket's current focus is on launching the first wafer fab, there are plans to build more wafer fabs in the future.

However, whether Cricket's future plans can be realized depends on whether its estimated $1 billion investment plan can be fully supported; and it seems that where the company's first wafer fab will be located in India is still an open question. According to Hutter, "We will focus on becoming a professional wafer foundry, and the target market is global, because India may not have enough business demand to fill a wafer fab capacity at the moment; so this wafer fab needs to be globally competitive to win customers from all over the world."

Hutter added that over time, he expects to see Cricket support more Indian chip manufacturing as the local ecosystem continues to develop: “But we can’t expect that because we are an Indian foundry, Indian fabless designers will necessarily adopt our services, especially if we are not globally competitive in terms of cost, quality and technology; so we need to win the business of Indian customers in the same way that we win the business of customers in other parts of the world.”

Hutter also confirmed that Cricket has met with officials from Telangana and several other provinces in India, but the company believes that Madhya Pradesh in central India is "more suitable"; Cricket has signed a letter of intent for cooperation with the Madhya Pradesh provincial government for its analog/power semiconductor fab plan in February this year.

“Many provinces in India understand the importance of semiconductor manufacturing in playing a catalyst role in India’s electronics ecosystem,” Hutter said. “Our analog/power semiconductor fab strategy is aligned with India’s needs and appears to be an investable plan.”

Many previous Indian fab plans seemed to have stalled. For example, IBM and Tower Semiconductor, and STMicroelectronics and Silterra Malaysia, both planned to build fabs in India, but they were stalled due to lack of willingness from local Indian governments or financial support from the central government.

When asked whether the Indian authorities are now ready to provide funding, tax incentives, water and electricity supply and other support to realize the establishment of the wafer fab, Hutter replied: "We can't speak for the Indian government, but I see a lot of traction and enthusiasm for this plan; we are working with the central and local governments in India to do something important for India, and we are doing these things as a team."

Hutter had 29 years of experience at TI until he left in 2007. During his tenure as head of TI's analog signal technology development team, he was responsible for the company's global analog, power and mixed signal technology development, as well as process delivery kits and mass production. Hutter moved to Dongbu Hitek from 2008 to 2012 as senior executive vice president and general manager of the analog foundry business unit. In addition, Hutter has 47 technical patents and has co-authored a textbook on analog semiconductor component-related technologies.

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