India on priority list for Intel plant

India still remains high on the list of manufacturing sites for the world's largest chipmaker Intel.

"Manufacturing in India is important for Intel, but the Indian government was slow in coming out with its semiconductor manufacturing proposal and missed the bus...we had to commit ourselves to options like Vietnam and China," said Craig Barrett, chairman, Intel, who was here today. "However, right now we don't have any plan to set up a plant here. We have enough capacity in the current manufacturing plants, and do not need any new plant," he added.

In the absence of a well documented semiconductor policy, Intel announced to invest $2.5 billion in northeastern China in March to build a micro-chip plant . This will be Intel's first semiconductor plant in Asia, with the production to begin in 2010.

The company is also in talks with the Indian government and private companies for rolling out WiMAX infrastructure. "We are a major contributor to base technology, hence WiMAX is also of importance to us," said Barrett, who has advised the government to "use the spectrum allocation with the best possible technology and not specific to any technology."

According to a report by research firms Maravedis and Tonse Telecom, India will have 13 million WiMAX subscribers by 2012. French technology major Alcatel has already set up a research and development centre in Chennai to develop WiMAX technology, and trial runs have been going on in Baramati, Pune, Delhi and Bangalore.

Barrett was in Delhi to announce the collaboration between Intel's World Ahead Programme with United Nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation (Unesco).