The law firm has requested ISM to reject Tower’s new application to set-up the fab without ISMC
The legal scuffle between Israel’s Tower Semiconductor and ISMC Analog Fab has been augmenting, with the latter’s legal team have taken up the matter seriously with the government via a communication to the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) on March 8. The law firm has requested ISM to reject Tower’s new applications to set-up the fab without ISMC. During the communication, the legal team has also ensured that its clients would be undertaking serious legal actions for rupturing the agreement and carrying out illegal action.
The lawyers have notified ISM that Tower has independently formed an alliance with a third party, which was offered by their clients, and then they have filed another fresh application. ISMC is not going to abide by this unilateral unlawful action and therefore, legal actions will be taken if given if the application is approved by ISM. In an interaction with Business Standard, Ajay Jalan, the chief of ISMC, said “Yes, our lawyers have sent communication to the government through ISM. They need to understand our grievances as our proposal has not been formally rejected by ISM.”
Back on December 31, 2020, the official agreement was signed between Tower Semiconductor and ISMC for commencing a 300-millimeter manufacturing analogue/mix fab in the nation. ISMC became one of the top three companies that applied for subsidies under the semiconductor scheme, supervised thoroughly by ISM. For this project, ISMC has also spent a lot of money on land in Karnataka, but since the policy had altered, coupled with increased incentives, the company revised the application with Tower’s assistance.
But, things took a different turn when Intel announced its purchase of Tower Semiconductor in February 2022 at an investment of $5.3 billion, which was later scrapped in 2023. When the acquisition announcement was made, Intel wasn’t willing to give financial support to ISMC. In September 2023, Tower Semiconductor sent an official letter to end its partnership with ISMC. A month later, Russell C Ellwanger, CEO of Tower held an official meeting with MoS Rajeev Chandrashekhar to set-up a $8 billion fab project in India.
