Suchi Semicon has started commercial production at its chip assembly and testing plant in Palsana, Surat district. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the unit virtually on September 17 while opening SEMICON India 2026, DeshGujarat reported. Gujarat’s other approved chip projects are in Sanand and Dholera, near Ahmedabad, which makes this the state’s first working chip plant in the south.
What the plant makes
Suchi’s unit is an OSAT facility, short for outsourced semiconductor assembly and test. It does not etch circuits onto silicon wafers. It takes finished dies, mounts and wires them into packages, seals them and tests them before they ship to device makers. India’s first working chip plants have all come up in this packaging stage, which needs less capital than a wafer fab.
The Union Cabinet approved the Rs 868 crore project in May 2026. According to the Cabinet’s announcement, as carried by NewKerala, the plant is designed for 1,033.20 million chips a year using lead-frame and wire-bond packaging. Its products are discrete semiconductors: diodes, transistors and similar single-function parts that switch and regulate power. You find them in air conditioners, televisions, phone chargers, solar inverters, motor controllers and EV battery systems. Appliance and industrial makers buy them by the million.
Business Today reported that Suchi has commissioned its Class 10K and Class 100K cleanrooms, completed its first customer shipment and signed a technology collaboration with Japan’s ROHM Semiconductor, a major maker of power chips.
Why Surat matters here
Gujarat’s chip story until now has been an Ahmedabad-region story. Micron’s assembly plant, CG Semi’s pilot line and Kaynes Semicon’s OSAT unit are all in Sanand; the Prime Minister inaugurated the Kaynes plant on March 31 this year. Tata Electronics is building the state’s wafer fab at Dholera. Palsana, on the other hand, sits in the textile-processing belt that feeds Surat’s weaving and dyeing trade.
That location gives Surat’s industrial base a new kind of employer. The city’s economy leans on diamonds and textiles, two sectors that swing with export demand and have gone through hard patches in recent years. A precision-manufacturing plant needs technicians, quality-control staff and process engineers, which gives local ITIs, polytechnics and engineering colleges a reason to build courses around electronics assembly. If suppliers of lead frames, moulding compounds and test equipment follow, Palsana could develop a small cluster of its own.
What to watch
- The ramp-up. The billion-chip figure is design capacity. How quickly Suchi fills it depends on orders from appliance, auto and power-electronics makers.
- Local hiring. The company and the state have not yet published how many of the plant’s jobs will go to workers from Surat district, or what training tie-ups they plan.
- The ROHM link. A Japanese partner can bring process know-how and customers. Watch for any announcement on joint products or volume contracts.
Sources: DeshGujarat, Business Today, NewKerala (Cabinet approval), News On AIR
This report was compiled and written with AI assistance from publicly reported sources, and reviewed for accuracy.