India based memory semiconductor fab is more essential

Date: 04/01/2015
There is a big and fast-growing market for flash memory storage in India which is directly proportional to number of PCs and smart phones sold in India and also driven by huge data back up market. India need a semiconductor fab exclusively for making DRAM and NAND flash. Toshiba has recently announced that its interested in building a offshore semiconductor production facility. India offers great opportunity for any such investor. Since two/three semiconductor fabs are going to come up in India sooner, Toshiba will have less infrastructure worries for it semiconductor fab in India. Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh are having all the infrastructure support for semiconductor fab industry such as 24/7 power, water, and the eco.

China is building huge manufacturing capability in semiconductor memory chips production. China is expected have a complete chain of supply locally including Flash memory wafer production as well as packaging.

Let India not become a dumping ground for low capacity cheap flash memory cards (in the form of USB thumbdrive/microSD) from China. US levies anti-dumping duties on China made cheap solar panels. Like US which practices best import policies in the world, India should also levy anti-dumping charges for low priced Flash memory products from China. Though initially local customers may have to pay little higher price, but they're going to be benefited in long-term if they have globally competitive local supplier for flash memory chips. Japan, US, South Korea and Taiwan are the other alternate high-quality Flash memory regions who can offer higher quality Flash memory chips.

Security also another important factor to be considered for manufacturing Flash memory chips locally in India. Thumb drives or such flash memory storage devices can be the carriers of rogue-code from outside India.

In every aspect of thinking, India's 4th semiconductor fab need to be a memory chip maker. If not DRAM atleast for manufacturing flash memory.

Author: Srinivasa Reddy N
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