Foundation ceremony for Fab City today

Chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy will inaugurate the foundation stone ceremony for the Fab City project here tomorrow. Dayanidhi Maran, Union minister for communications and information technology, will also take part in the function.

The state government has allotted 1,200 acres of land near the upcoming international airport to SemIndia Fab Limited, promoted by Vinod K Agarwal, who has promised to bring in a state-of-the-art assembly and semiconductor manufacturing facility involving an investment of around $3 billion.

According to C S Rao, CEO of APInvest, the nodal agency to facilitate the establishment of the project, SemIndia is planning to produce chips with 180 nanometre of 200 mm diametre initially and will later graduate to production of 130 nanometre of 300 mm diametre. It would finally produce 90 nanometre of 300 mm diametre chips.

The promoters of SemIndia are expected to make a couple of new announcements at the time of foundation laying. Once the Fab City is fully functional, it will become a hub for advanced semiconductor and electronics manufacturing for domestic consumption with a strong export potential, according to a press release.

SemIndia has entered into a broad-based agreement with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), the world's second largest manufacturer of processors, including transfer of technology for Fab City unit, marketing and sales, customer relationship for the company's chips and assembly and test service and other joint venture partnership initiatives.

Chennai-based Flextronics Inc too has entered into an agreement with SemIndia for using the chips produced by the Fab City unit in its products.