Foxconn-HCL Joint Venture Likely To Set Up Semiconductor Assembly Unit In Uttar Pradesh: Report

Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group and India’s HCL Group are reportedly planning to set up a semiconductor outsourced assembly and testing (OSAT) unit in India.

Foxconn will hold 40 stake in the joint venture with an investment of $37.2 million, Livemint reported.

“HCL Group plans to partner with Foxconn Group to establish OSAT operations in India. HCL Group has a strong engineering and manufacturing heritage and this is an opportunity that provides strategic adjacency to the Group portfolio,” an HCL Group spokesperson was quoted as saying in the Livemint report in response to queries.

The report further quoted a Foxconn spokesperson as saying that through this investment, both the companies "aim to build an ecosystem and foster supply chain resilience for the domestic industry".

“Foxconn looks forward to jointly setting up OSAT operations in India with HCL," the Foxconn spokesperson said, adding that the company will deploy its build-operate-localize (BOL) model to support local communities.

Foxconn Hon Hai Technology India Mega Development Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of Foxconn Technology Group, reportedly informed the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Wednesday that the JV was a non-binding memorandum of understanding and would be followed by negotiations.

The companies may set up the OSAT unit in Uttar Pradesh as the state authorities have allotted around thirty acres of land, near the upcoming Jewar airport in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida, for the factory, Economic Times reported citing people aware of the matter.

If the proposed unit, located in the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) region, gains central government approval, it will be the first such project to come up in UP, they added.

“HCL said it prefers UP as its headquarters is located in Noida and it will have a strong home base advantage. (It) emphasised that it has a strong footing in the state and the familiarity would make it smoother to manage,” ET quoted one of the persons aware of the matter as saying.

This comes a day after Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the government has so far received nine proposals for setting up different kinds of semiconductor fabrication units as well as plants that will test the semiconductors made elsewhere in the world.

“After Micron’s successful investment, there has been an extremely robust pipeline of proposals that have come. There’s a lot more interest. There are two very serious fab proposals, four OSAT proposals and three compound fab proposals,” he said on Tuesday while briefing on the National Startup Day.

The minister did not name the companies that have submitted proposals.

US-based Micron Technology. had earlier announced an $825 million investment towards its assembly, testing, monitoring, and packaging (ATMP) plans in India, beginning construction in September last year with the goal of producing its first packaged chip by the year’s end.

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