If you’ve ever bought a TV, a smartphone, or even a washing machine — there’s a tiny
chip inside it doing all the thinking. And chances are, that chip wasn’t made in India. It
came from Taiwan, South Korea, or China.
That’s the problem India has been trying to fix for years. And this week, we moved a few
steps closer.
The Union Cabinet approved two new semiconductor manufacturing units on May 5th.
Both will come up in Gujarat, with a combined investment of around ₹3,936 crore.
Together, they’re expected to create jobs for over 2,200 skilled professionals.
Here’s what’s actually being built — in plain English.
Unit 1: India’s First Micro-LED Display Factory
A company called Crystal Matrix Limited (CML) is setting up a plant in Dholera,
Gujarat. This one’s genuinely exciting — it’ll be the first facility in India to commercially
manufacture Mini and Micro-LED displays.
You’ve probably heard about Micro-LED — it’s the display tech that makes screens look
incredibly sharp and vivid while using less power. Think premium TVs, big commercial
signage boards, smartphone screens, car dashboards, and those futuristic AR glasses
you see in tech demos.
The plant will be able to produce 72,000 square meters of display panels every
year — which is a lot. They’ll also make the raw wafers (called GaN wafers) that go into
building these displays, so the whole process happens under one roof.
Until now, companies making these products in India had to import the displays from
abroad. This plant changes that.
Unit 2: A Chip Packaging Plant in Surat
Suchi Semicon Private Limited (SSPL) will build a chip packaging and testing facility in
Surat. Now “packaging” might sound boring, but it’s actually a critical part of chip
manufacturing — once a chip is made, it needs to be packaged properly before it can go
into any device.
This plant will focus on chips used in power electronics and industrial systems — the
kind that go into cars, factory machines, and everyday appliances. They plan to produce
over 1 billion chips a year.
India has been weak in this packaging segment for a long time, so this fills a real gap.
So Where Does India Stand Overall?
With these two approvals, India now has 12 semiconductor projects approved under
the India Semiconductor Mission, with a total investment of roughly ₹1.64 lakh crore.
That’s not a small number.
Out of the earlier 10 approved projects, two have already started commercial
production and shipping chips — meaning actual chips made in India are going out into
the market. Two more are expected to start soon.
On top of that, the government has been quietly building design talent too — supporting
315 colleges and 104 startups with chip design tools and infrastructure. Because
making chips isn’t just about factories, it’s also about having enough engineers who
know how to design them.
