Real estate giant Hiranandani group, which is venturing into the semiconductor space through its company Tarq Semiconductors, expects an approval for its compound semiconductor fab project from the government in the next two months, Darshan Hiranandani, chief executive officer of the group, told FE in an interaction.
The company has submitted its applications for both an assembly, testing, marking, and packaging (ATMP) unit and compound semiconductor fab plant, which will come up in Uttar Pradesh. Compound semiconductors are critical for high-power and high temperature applications and products such as LED, radio frequency devices, electronic devices, automobiles, etc. ATMP or chip assembly and packaging comes into play after semiconductor fabrication. It is the next step in the semiconductor value chain.
“We have already completed the application for ATMP as well as submitted our compound semiconductor fab project with the government. We expect to get all approvals from the government within the next 30 to 60 days,” Hiranandani said.
For setting up the fab and assembly, packaging and testing unit, Hiranandani group will rope in a joint venture partner.
“Our job is to solve the India problem, and we are getting the best talent globally and a partnership globally. So it’s a partnership of Indian expertise with global best-in-class partners who have done it before and who have other fabs and facilities around the world. So it’s going to be a joint venture,” Hiranandani said.
“We have tied up with a set of firms from the US and Japan to actually focus on getting right from a compound semiconductor fab to an ATMP,” he added.
One of the reasons which the companies like Hiranandani are finding the semiconductor business lucrative is lower energy costs to run the fabrication unit in India compared to other countries. Further, with compound semiconductor ecosystem in place, more energy efficient devices can be created and energy costs can be reduced, experts said.
On the decision to venture into the compound semiconductor space, Hiranandani said, “I think compound towers are where we can save a lot of energy and create energy efficiency into the country. We have found that cars, washing machines, dryers, TVs, mobile phones, all of that is now being assembled and put together in India. I felt it is the right space to start with.”
For its ATMP facility, the company is expected to invest about Rs 2,500 crore initially. It will set up the facility in Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority, Uttar Pradesh.
Apart from its strong real estate turf, Hiranandani also offers full-stack data centre services through its company Yotta. “We will probably by the end of this year be the largest data centre player in India. And we’ve got from strength to strength in that space and as we started working in more and more technical things, we have started moving forward,” Hiranandani said.
“In October, we will be completely launching an indigenously developed public cloud platform,” he added.