By Dia Rekhi

Copyright indiatimes

Industrial and electronic gas producer Inox Air Products (Inox AP) has started building a Rs 500-crore electronic specialty gas hub at Dholera in Gujarat, said a top executive.The facility will look to cater to demand from the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem being built around Tata Electronics in Dholera. Inox AP’s hub will produce and supply Ultra High Purity (UHP) bulk and specialty gases including nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and hydrogen, essential for advanced semiconductor fabrication. “We have been planning this facility for more than a year, and finally construction has begun,” Siddharth Jain, managing director, Inox Group told ET. “I am very hopeful that within 12 to 18 months at the latest, we should have this facility operational.”“Hopefully, it will be in sync and on time with the Tata facility, because the primary purpose of investing in this facility is for the end demand of Tata’s project and a few other smaller semiconductor players in the region, who don’t require the same level of gas complexity that Tata requires,” he said.Tata Electronics is building India’s first fab in Dholera. The Rs 91,000 crore project is a joint venture with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp, a cornerstone of India’s ambitious push to establish a domestic semiconductor ecosystem. As construction progresses and the plant gears up for production, securing a steady and reliable supply of ultra-pure chemicals and gases is paramount.Jain noted that Inox AP is the first industrial and electronic gas company to secure land for its unit. He said the investment would be made over two to three years, which would entail building a fulfilment centre to store and deliver the estimated 40 types of gases currently not produced in India. “Tata’s demand alone is too small right now for us to invest in the hardcore manufacturing of all those 45 different gases, but we will slowly make our way there, as demand grows,” said Jain. “We are already in talks with various multinationals for collaborations to manufacture some of these gases and chemicals here in India.” Jain underlined Inox AP’s plan to produce more complex chemicals and in larger volumes once it finalises technology tie-ups and investments over a period of time. Initially, the company will be importing these gases, but the long-term plan is “robust and scalable”, he added. Inox AP also plans to export gases and chemicals from Dholera. However, Jain clarified that this would be beyond the initial Rs 500 crore outlay, requiring a different strategy and investment plan. Inox AP has over 1,800 employees, and Jain said the staff count is growing every year in line with the company’s expansions. Skilling employees for the upcoming plant in Dholera is already underway, he said.”For solar and semiconductor gases, the entire skilling happens abroad,” he explained. “We are sending our people to vendor locations for training and bringing them back. We’ve been doing this for over three years, and it’s a constant cycle and we’re continually investing in our people.”ET had reported on September 5 that German industrial gases supplier Linde is in the advanced stages of finalising the setting up of a new plant in Dholera and partnering with large electronics customers to serve the semiconductor ecosystem coming up in the region.