Tata ready to buy its way into semiconductors: report

Business news | April 28, 2023

By Peter Clarke

India silicon wafer

Natarajan Chandrasekaran, the chair of Tata, has said the company is looking to make acquisitions as it moves towards running a wafer fab in India.

Tata Group had $128 billion in sales in the 21-22 financial year and operates in sectors ranging from steel to automobiles. It recently moved into 5G telecommunications. It has a budget of $90 billion for investment across the breadth of its interests, with about 70 percent of that slated to be spent in India.

“Even in our manufacturing semiconductor journey we are looking at acquisitions – a few acquisitions will be done,” Chandrasekaran is quoted saying in an interview conducted with India’s Business Today.

During the interview Chandrasekaran confirmed the group’s plan to manufacture semiconductors in India (see Tata plans to make semiconductors in India) but said it may take a little time. He indicated that Tata will start with assembly and packaging of ICs (see Tata in talks over $300 million Indian chip packaging factory). “The next stage will be semiconductor testing. Then fabless – we will do the design. And then we get into the fab. Those are the stages of integration we will go through.”

Chandrasekaran reportedly said Tata needed to proceed with caution to make sure it is doing the right thing and investing in the right semiconductor node. Elsewhere it was reported that while Tata plans to start with chip assembly and test with a decision on the more expensive prospect of a wafer fab yet to be taken.

Tata recently announced the hiring of former Intel executive Randhir Thakur to be CEO of its Tata Electronics subsidiary set up to enter semiconductor manufacturing (see Tata hires former boss of Intel foundry services). Thakur was previously head of Intel Foundry Services.