Under the Centre's $10 billion scheme to seed a semiconductor ecosystem, Singapore-based IGSS Ventures (IGSSV), one of the applicants, is discussing with the Indian manufacturing entities for partnerships amid scrutiny of its incentive application to build a $3.5 billion foundry fab in India.

IGSSV is looking for an ‘experienced Indian mfg or private entity’ familiar with infrastructure and bureaucracy affairs, although it has an MoU with Tamil Nadu government’s investment development body TIDCO to build a semiconductor plant in Tamil Nadu.

IGSSV aims to build a factory dubbed in semiconductor parlance as ‘foundry fab’, to manufacture microchips for a variety of users like fabless semiconductor companies, advanced electronics manufacturers, and others.

As for semiconductor nodes, IGSSV’s factory would incorporate the 28 nm segment, to use in smartphones and other gadgets—and several other mature nodes.

IGSSV proposed to create a 300-acre park in Tamil Nadu to include semiconductor circuit designers,assembly and test ecosystems, and material and equipment suppliers.

By October or early November, the government is expected to start awarding the first set of incentives under the $10 billion semiconductor package.

Among the criteria laid out by the Centre, the applicant company should have crossed a Rs 7,500-crore revenue target in any of the three years preceding application submission.

Additionally, IGSSV tied up with Belgium-based microelectronics research lab Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) to license the technology required for its semiconductor nodes.

The Centre has mandated that applicants display production-grade licensed technologies, and a roadmap for advancement into high-tech nodes through product development or acquisition of technology.

The Centre's Semicon India initiative to set up a semiconductor ecosystem in the country was modified recently to broad-base the 50 percent capital subsidy slab across all categories—semiconductor wafer fabs, display panel factories, compound semiconductors, packaging plants, and others.