Ahmedabad, February 26 Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the semiconductor assembly and testing plant of US chipmaker Micron Technology, established with an investment of Rs 22,516 crore at Sanand near Ahmedabad, on February 28, Gujarat government officials said on Thursday.
The state-of-the-art semiconductor ATMP (assembly, testing, marking, and packaging) facility, for which an MoU was signed nearly three years ago, will manufacture SSD (solid-state drive) storage devices, as well as RAM-type DRAM (dynamic random access memory) and NAND (a type of flash memory technology used in storage devices) products, according to a state government release.
Notably, DRAM and NAND technologies are used in computing, smartphones, servers, data centers, and portable electronics, and the facility is being inaugurated at a time when artificial intelligence (AI), whose systems heavily rely on memory and storage support, has become one of the most discussed issues worldwide.
The US-based company has invested Rs 22,516 crore in the Sanand plant, according to the release.
"Currently, 2,000 people are employed (at the plant). Eventually, 5,000 direct employment opportunities will be created. According to the Micron team, Divyang (specially-abled) citizens are serving as operators and technicians, and the facility provides opportunities to skilled people from all sections of society," it said.
The release quoted Micron Technology Chairman, President, and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra as saying that memory and storage are central to today's technology, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).
Mehrotra remarked that AI systems depend heavily on strong memory and storage support to function efficiently.
As AI continues to deliver faster and real-time responses, the demand for more advanced memory solutions is steadily increasing, he maintained.
In June 2023, the Gujarat government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Micron for setting up a USD 2.75 billion semiconductor assembly and testing facility at Sanand.
The company had announced that the facility, once operational, would create nearly 5,000 direct jobs and an additional 15,000 indirect employment opportunities.