Asia Tech Wire (Feb 20) -- India's Tata Group may seek to partner with a Taiwanese company to build its chip manufacturing plant, according to the latest market news.

The Tata Group could explore a partnership with one of the two major Taiwanese chipmakers, namely, Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC) and United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), to build a chip plant at Dholera in Gujarat, the home state of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Economic Times reported on Tuesday, citing officials familiar with the matter.

According to the report, the Tata Group aims to produce chips with a mature process up to 65nm, and then gradually move to 48nm and 28nm to support applications in graphics processing units (GPUs), consumer electronics and the Internet of Things (IoT) in a few years' time.

The sources said the Tata Group has finalised the details of the land for the plant and is likely to break ground soon.

However, the Tata Group's plan to enter the 28nm process may take some time as it has to ensure sufficient order book for the mature processes (such as 65nm and 48nm) in the Indian domestic market, the sources said.

The initial capacity of the plant will be 25,000 wafers per month, producing 700-1,000 semiconductor chips per day at full capacity, the people said.

Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons Pvt. Ltd., the parent company of the Tata Group, had said in January this year that the group would announce "a huge semiconductor fab" in Dholera, which would start operations in 2024.