Foxconn gets nod for $435M project to make more of Apple chips in India, eventually

Summary

Foxconn, a key manufacturer for Apple, has received an approval from India’s cabinet to build a new 37 billion Indian rupees ($435 million) semiconductor plant in a joint venture with the country’s IT giant HCL Group. The deal is the latest move to reduce Apple’s reliance on China and produce more components in India. The plant, which will be located near the Jewar airport in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and is expected to start operating in 2027, will eventually manufacture display driver chips for mobile phones, laptops, automobiles, PCs, and other devices, India’s IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said at a press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday. Display driver chips handle how screens show images, text, and videos. However, since India currently lacks advanced chip fabrication facilities, this plant will not do the chip fabrication immediately but will, at first, be used as a semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) facility. That means it will be focused on providing packaging and testing services for chips that have been manufactured elsewhere, a senior official confirmed to TechCrunch. Vaishnaw, however, is hopeful that this is a step towards India developing its own fabs for making the chips that could power Apple devices, starting with the display panel chips that this facility will be testing. “Once this unit is there, the display panel [manufacturing] will also come to India,” Vaishnaw said, adding that it “will have a capacity of 20,000 wafers per month and can produce 36 million units monthly.” Nevertheless, the deal is still another step towards Apple diversifying manufacturing away from China and deepening ties with India. This deal announcement has come just days after Apple CEO Tim Cook said one way Apple is handling the trade uncertainties between the U.S. and China was to have India do more manufacturing and assembly. Cook at that time implied that deepening ties with India would mean that Apple would not be forced to raise prices on its devic...