Vedanta's Semiconductor Unit in Gujarat to Be Headed by David Reed; to Manufacture Chips for Phones, Laptops

Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta on Monday named industry veteran David Reed to head its semiconductor unit where it is looking to invest $20 billion (nearly Rs. 1,65,600 crore) to manufacture chips essential for mobile phones to laptops and TV sets.

In an interview with PTI, Agarwal said the group is looking to start manufacturing semiconductors at Dholera in Gujarat in 2-3 years.

"We will start with $5 billion (nearly Rs. 41,400 crore) investment and scale it up as years go by," he said.

The semiconductors will be manufactured in joint venture with Taiwanese electronics company Foxconn. Vedanta holds a 63 percent interest and the remaining is with Foxconn in the joint venture.

The company plans to initially produce 40,000 wafers a month.

Before joining Vedanta, Reed was with NXP Semiconductors, where he was Executive Vice President and General Manager of global operations.

He moved to NXP as part of the merger with Freescale Semiconductor, where he had served as Senior Vice President for manufacturing operations. Previously, David was Vice President and General Manager at GlobalFoundries.

He began his career at Texas Instruments in 1984, where he served for 26 years in a variety of leadership roles across the world.

In September 2022, Vedanta signed an MoU with Gujarat government to set up India's first semiconductor fab unit, a display fab unit, and a semiconductor assembling and testing unit in the state.

Vedanta Group has earlier announced that the group has earmarked investments of up to $20 billion for semiconductor business, and it plans to invest $15 billion (nearly Rs. 1,24,200 crore) in the first 10 years.

Vedanta will look at making a 28 nanometer (nm) chipset.

It has also applied for setting up a display fabrication plant to make screens that are used for display in electronic devices.