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Indian Govt. selects Tower Semiconductors to run 300mm wafer fab

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE, INDIA: Indian Government has shortlisted Tower Semiconductors to build and run a 300-mm wafer fab in the country. Tower had previously announced that it was part of consortium headed up by cement maker Jaypee Associates and that included IBM that was bidding to be allowed to build fab, reports Peter Clarke of EETimes.

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Jaypee Associates would primarily own the wafer fab and IBM would provide baseline 90-nm, 65-nm and 45-nm manufacturing process technologies. Tower has been contracted to build and operate the wafer fab.

"We received a positive feedback from the Indian government within the past weeks that our consortium is now going to the next step in the approval process. We expect to receive a decision before year's end but again can give no guarantee to timing or if our consortium will ultimately win the selection," said Tower's CEO, Russell Ellwanger.

Though the Indian government had not formally announced how many bids are involved in the next round, or how many have been screened out but as per the government a decision would be taken by the end of 2012.

"The factory from ground breaking would take three years to the point of having qualified silicon earnings through the factory," said Ellwanger. "So it’s three years to get started. We would build the factory contracting to build it. We would also operate the factory contracting to operate it. All agreements are with Jaypee," he added.

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