Two production-line inaugurations in September 2026 widened India’s semiconductor story beyond Micron. At SEMICON India, commercial lines at CDIL in Mohali and Suchi Semicon in Surat were inaugurated. The electronics ministry said these brought the number of operating commercial units among the twelve approved Semicon 1.0 projects to five. [1]
The earlier three were Micron, Kaynes and CG Semi, identified in the government’s July account. The change was evidence of projects reaching an operating stage. It did not mean that all twelve approvals had become producing plants, or that every facility made the same kind of semiconductor. [3] [1]
An industry with several production stages
A semiconductor can be designed in one place, fabricated on a wafer elsewhere and then assembled, packaged and tested at another factory. Each stage involves skills and equipment, but they are different capabilities.
The government’s project register reflects those distinctions. Tata’s Dholera project was approved as a silicon wafer fab with planned capacity around 50,000 wafer starts a month. Tata’s Assam project was listed for packaging, while other approvals covered display-driver processing, compound semiconductors and specialised assembly. Their stated capacities were design targets, rather than actual production counts. [2]
The register also included expansion of CDIL’s existing discrete-device business. Describing every new unit as India’s first semiconductor factory would obscure both those differences and the industry already present. [2]
The capability before the new scheme
The Semiconductor Laboratory at Mohali has a much older institutional history. Formerly Semiconductor Complex Limited, it became SCL under the Department of Space in 2006 and later moved to the electronics ministry. It already provided design, fabrication, assembly and testing for specialised applications. [4]
In March 2025, ISRO and SCL handed over production lots of VIKRAM3201 and KALPANA3201 processors for space applications. VIKRAM3201 was fabricated at SCL’s 180-nanometre facility and developed from an earlier processor family used in launch-vehicle avionics since 2009. This was a specific domestic capability, distinct from the scale and technology of a new commercial foundry. [5]
From approved investment to a working fab
Dholera illustrates the distance between approval and production. On 18 September 2026, Tata Electronics announced a collaboration with Kelington to deliver critical infrastructure and accelerate readiness for silicon-wafer manufacturing. The company described preparatory work, rather than announcing commercial wafer shipments. [6]
The Union Cabinet had meanwhile approved Semicon 2.0 in July with a ₹1,27,500 crore outlay. Its scope extended to design, equipment, materials and skills as well as manufacturing. That was a funding and policy commitment; it was not expenditure already completed or revenue earned by plants. [3]
The industry now contains operating units alongside projects preparing their infrastructure. Its progress can be followed in commissioned lines, qualified products and shipments, with the newer factories building on an older base of Indian semiconductor work. [1] [5] [6]