Fund crunch made Intellect bow out of fab

HYDERABAD, INDIA: Intellect Inc. today cited lack of funds and partners for dropping its plan to set up a fab in Shamshabad.

Instead, the South Korean firm was now planning a joint venture to establish a solar fabricator, in which Goldstone Infratech, an Indian product company with focus on power and telecom sectors, would hold 56 per cent stake.

The funding would be on a debt equity ratio of 4:1. Goldstone would invest about Rs 140 crore in the new project.

The joint venture would be known as TF SolarPower and P June Min, the promoter of Intellect, would be its chairman.

Addressing a press conference here today, Dr Min said that it was difficult to attract investors to semiconductor fabricators in Fab City.

“The cost is 10 times higher than solar fabricators.”

Dr Min had earlier registered a company called Nano Tech Silicon India to set up a fab in Shamshabad.

“We could not attract the technology partners or investors to the project,” he said.

There were reports mentioning the possibility of IBM or Intel partnering Nano Tech Silicon India to set up a fab.

A minimum of Rs 6000 crore would be required to set up a functional semiconductor fabricator said Min.

“But there is now hope as due to central government policies large industrial houses such a Reliance and Tatas are showing interest (in semicon fabs),” added Dr Min.

He said India was an ideal location considering the presence of many chip designing companies.