ISMC to Build US$3 Billion Chip Foundry in India

[TheLostSwede]

International semiconductor consortium or ISMC is a new joint venture between Abu Dhabi-based Next Orbit Ventures and Israeli Tower Semiconductor that is getting ready to invest big. The consortium is said to be looking at investing no less than US$3 billion in a chip foundry based in Karnataka, India. Maybe the most interesting part here is that Tower Semiconductor is set to be acquired by Intel, assuming the deal passes all regulatory reviews. This means that Intel could be replacing Tower Semiconductor in the consortium before the new fab has been finished.

Not much information is available about ISMC, but the planned chip plant would be one of the first foundries in India, as well as the largest foundry in the nation. So far ISMC has only signed a memorandum of Understanding with the government of Karnataka, so things could still change. However, the US$10 billion incentive by the central Indian government might be part of the reason behind the decision. Tower Semiconductor specialises in various speciality process technologies, such as SiGe, BiCMOS and SOI and manufacturer mixed-signal and RFCMOS chips, as well as CMOS based image sensors, power management chips and various types of non-volatile memory and some MEMS products for its customers. The new fab is expected to bring 1,500 direct and some 10,000 indirect jobs to the region.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Chaitanya]

so either in Bengaluru or Mysuru.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

Is anyone else surprised.... Not it's not surprising.... I guess bothered then, by Intel's constant acquisitions and curious as to why no government entity is ever even investigating them? I feel like even in the slim chance we'd ever have a third x86 CPU manufacturer, Intel would just swallow them up before they could even release a product.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Is anyone else surprised.... Not it's not surprising.... I guess bothered then, by Intel's constant acquisitions and curious as to why no government entity is ever even investigating them? I feel like even in the slim chance we'd ever have a third x86 CPU manufacturer, Intel would just swallow them up before they could even release a product.

There's another one posted today too, if you're interested. They bought a company of less than 50 people, most likely around a dozen people...

 

[Frick]

Is anyone else surprised.... Not it's not surprising.... I guess bothered then, by Intel's constant acquisitions and curious as to why no government entity is ever even investigating them? I feel like even in the slim chance we'd ever have a third x86 CPU manufacturer, Intel would just swallow them up before they could even release a product.

There is a third x86 license holder (Via, through Cyrix) and there will never be more. The simple version is Intel holds x86, AMD holds x86_64 and between them is a web of cross licensing and no one else will get into it, ever. As for Intel buying stuff up: it's what companies of that size does. See some interesting tech that can bolster us/hinder others? Yeah, buying that. AMD bought Xilinx (FPGAs) not that long ago, and more recently Pensando (cloud stuff). A far cry from Intels shopping spree, but they don't have the money (or need, at the moment) for it.

 

[PapaTaipei]

And this news might be censored or at the very least silenced in UAE so that their people won't know how much of a sellout their gov is.

 

[JaymondoGB]

Hope they have some Tax rate assurances from the Government.

 

[ARF]

There is a third x86 license holder (Via, through Cyrix) and there will never be more. The simple version is Intel holds x86, AMD holds x86_64 and between them is a web of cross licensing and no one else will get into it, ever. As for Intel buying stuff up: it's what companies of that size does. See some interesting tech that can bolster us/hinder others? Yeah, buying that. AMD bought Xilinx (FPGAs) not that long ago, and more recently Pensando (cloud stuff). A far cry from Intels shopping spree, but they don't have the money (or need, at the moment) for it.

x86-64 will not exist for many more years. Once the manufacturing processes stop developing, which will happen sooner rather than later, x86-64 will naturally die because of lack of competitive selling points.

You probably know how badly broken Intel's 10nm process is.
TSMC N7 was a 2020 thing.
TSMC N5 will be a 2022-2023 thing.
TSMC N2 will be a 2025-2026 thing, etc...

By 2030 everyone will know the truth.