Tata Electronics sends hundreds of employees to Taiwan for chipmaking training

Tata Electronics has sent hundreds of employees to Taiwan for specialised training in chip making. As reported by The Economic Times, the company is speeding up its ambitious plans for semiconductor fabrication (fab) and outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) facilities.

Tata Electronics sends employees for semicon training 

According to the report, Tata Electronics has already dispatched “a couple of hundred" employees to Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC), its Taiwanese technology partner, to be trained in the critical skills required to run its upcoming fab in Dholera, Gujarat.

“The number of Tata Electronics employees heading to Taiwan for training has certainly gone up as the company prepares for its fab," one person aware of the development told ET, adding, “Talent is the biggest gap."

Given the limited training capacity of PSMC at any given time, India’s leading company is following a phased and structured approach. 

The company is hiring people in batches of around 75 people, based on different functions.

"Different batches focus on distinct operations like equipment, yield engineering, process technology and another on quality engineering, which is generally a smaller group that doesn't need as many people,” the person said.

The firm has hired both fresh college graduates and those with a few years of experience in the industry, and “is sending these people to Taiwan for training."

“Around 50 to 75 people are being sent per batch. It’s a very methodical, thoughtful process," the person said, as per the report.

Tata Electronics’ Rs 91,000-crore chipmaking facility in Dholera is expected to generate over 20,000 direct and indirect jobs. On the other hand, the Rs 27,000-crore OSAT facility in Assam is projected to create around 27,000 jobs.

At the Dholera fab’s groundbreaking event in March 2024, Union Electronics & IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw disclosed that the first chip from the Dholera facility is expected by December 2026, and the Assam OSAT’s first phase will start by mid-2025.

In April, the company appointed GlobalFoundries’ Asia president, KC Ang, as the president and head of Tata Semiconductor Manufacturing.

ET had also reported on June 3 that the company may acquire a Malaysian chip plant to gain practical experience of how to run such facilities.

As per the agreement with PSMC, the technology partner will provide design and construction support to build India’s first AI-enabled state-of-the-art greenfield fab in Gujarat, license a broad portfolio of technologies, and provide engineering support to transfer licensed technologies to the fab.

This fab will have manufacturing capacity of up to 50,000 wafers per month. This includes next-generation factory automation capabilities, deploying data analytics and machine learning to achieve industry-best factory efficiency.

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