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Dholera versus Sanand and Micron
Dholera and Sanand are both semiconductor sites in Gujarat, but they do very different things. Dholera is home to India's first wafer fabrication plant under construction, while Sanand hosts Micron's assembly, test, and packaging plant. This page explains the difference clearly so the two are not confused.
Last checked 2026-08-11 · every figure below carries its source
Two Gujarat sites, two different jobs
A common source of confusion is treating Dholera and Sanand as the same kind of project because both are in Gujarat and both fall under India's semiconductor push. They are distinct sites doing distinct parts of the chip supply chain. Dholera hosts the Tata Electronics and PSMC wafer fabrication plant, approved on 29 February 2024 under the India Semiconductor Mission. A wafer fab is where raw silicon wafers are processed into circuits, the most capital-intensive and technically demanding stage of chip making. Sanand hosts Micron's assembly, test, and packaging plant, approved under the India Semiconductor Mission in 2023. Assembly, test, and packaging, often shortened to ATMP or OSAT (outsourced assembly and test, the back end of chip making where finished wafers are cut and packaged), is the back-end stage where finished wafers are cut, packaged into usable chips, and tested. Both stages are essential, but they are not interchangeable. A packaging plant does not fabricate circuits, and a fab does not, on its own, complete final packaging. Understanding this split is the first step to reading India's semiconductor map accurately, because headlines sometimes blur the two into a single story about chips being made in Gujarat.
What the Dholera fab is
The Dholera project is India's first commercial wafer fab under construction. It is a joint effort between Tata Electronics and PSMC, the Taiwanese firm Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, which serves as the technology partner. The reported investment is about Rs 91,000 crore, roughly US$11 billion, with the Press Information Bureau citing Rs 91,526 crore. The plan describes a 300mm fab with capacity of up to 50,000 wafers per month, aimed at mature and specialty nodes such as 28, 40, 55, 90, and 110 nanometres rather than leading-edge nodes. The node roadmap is reported to begin at 55 and 90 nanometres and later move toward 28 nanometres. An ASML lithography partnership has been confirmed for the project. First silicon is a target around December 2026, and commercial production is reported for the middle of 2028. As of now, no chip has been produced at the site, so it remains a construction and ramp-up project. In plain terms, Dholera is where India intends to actually fabricate chips from wafers, which is why it is described as the country's first fab rather than its first packaging plant.
What Micron Sanand is
Micron's plant at Sanand is an assembly, test, and packaging facility, not a wafer fab. It takes fabricated wafers, which may be produced elsewhere, and turns them into finished, tested memory products ready for use. This back-end work is valuable and skill-building, and it was one of the earlier large semiconductor investments approved in India, cleared under the India Semiconductor Mission in 2023. Because Sanand is packaging and test rather than fabrication, it should not be described as India making chips from scratch. The distinction matters for anyone trying to understand how far along India's capabilities really are. India is developing both front-end fabrication, through Dholera, and back-end packaging, through sites like Sanand, but these are separate rungs on the same ladder. Sanand and Dholera are both in Gujarat, yet they are different locations with different investors and different functions. Conflating Micron's Sanand packaging plant with the Tata and PSMC Dholera fab is a frequent error, and keeping them separate gives a much clearer picture of what each contributes to the supply chain.
The wider Indian map
Dholera and Sanand are two nodes in a larger and still-forming national picture. Tata also has an assembly and test plant at Jagiroad in Assam, and companies such as CG Power and Kaynes have units elsewhere in the country. Taken together, India has around a dozen sanctioned semiconductor projects, with a cumulative value on the order of Rs 1.64 lakh crore. That cumulative figure is an India-wide total across many projects and stages, and it should never be attributed to Dholera alone or to any single site. Two further Gujarat units were approved on 5 May 2026, one at Dholera and one at Surat, together worth over Rs 3,900 crore and expected to create over 2,200 jobs, though those numbers are still being confirmed. The healthy way to read the map is by function. Some sites fabricate wafers, most so far handle assembly, test, and packaging, and the ecosystem of materials and equipment suppliers is only beginning to form. Dholera stands out as the first fab, while Sanand and similar plants represent the back-end packaging layer that a maturing industry also needs.