Overview
- Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi led the foundation ceremony in Bhubaneswar with Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw joining virtually, as SiCSem, a subsidiary of Archean Chemical Industries, kicked off construction.
- The project carries an investment of ₹2,067 crore, was cleared at the Union level, and has 23 acres allocated at InfoValley near Jatni for the integrated fab and packaging unit.
- The plant is billed as the country’s first end-to-end silicon carbide facility with planned capacity of 60,000 wafers a year and roughly 96 million packaged units for EVs, renewables, railways, data centres and defence uses.
- SiCSem projects operations in 2027–28, with employment estimates reported from over 1,000 direct roles to about 5,000 direct and indirect jobs during ramp-up.
- An industry–academia push accompanies the buildout, including a ₹64 crore Research and Innovation Centre at IIT Bhubaneswar, a ~₹5 crore MPLAD-backed NaMo Semiconductor Lab, and a collaboration cited with UK-based Clas‑SiC Wafer Fab.