Sanand, Aug. 29 -- India's first "Made in India" semiconductor chip will roll out of CG Semi's plant in Sanand, Gujarat, IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced on Thursday. The minister made the disclosure during a media interaction at the inauguration of CG Semi's pilot OSAT (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test) facility, which was also attended by Gujarat chief minister Bhupendrabhai Patel. Prime Minister Narendra Modi,during his address to the nation on the 79th Independence Day, had declared that India's first chip would be ready by the end of 2025. Vaishnaw had previously said that there was intense competition brewing among three semiconductor plants to claim the milestone. HT had reported that the first Made in India chip will come out of one of the three semiconductor units under construction in Sanand. It is worth noting that the country's first chip will be a packaged chip, assembled and tested in India, rather than one produced at a domestic fabrication facility. The Sanand OSAT facility is the country's first end-to-end unit, the government said. It is developed by CG Semi, which holds a 92.3% stake. The project is in collaboration with Renesas Electronics and Stars Microelectronics, which hold around 6.8% and 0.9% equity, respectively. Backed by the Union government's India Semiconductor Mission (ISM), the facility was cleared in February 2024 with an outlay of Rs.7,600 crore over five years, and its foundation stone was laid the following month. The project will house two units, G1, the pilot line, and G2, the larger commercial plant. The pilot unit, with an investment of Rs.600 crore and employing 100-200 people, began production on Thursday. The main unit, with an investment of Rs.7,000 crore, is expected to employ around 1,000 people once operational, a person aware of the matter said. The pilot line is crucial for customer validation, the IT minister said, adding that products made in the line will be tested and qualified by customers before large-scale commercial production begins at the main plant. The pilot line will have a capacity of 500,000 chips per day. Together, G1 and G2 are expected to reach an installed capacity of 15 million chips per day, or 4.7 billion units annually, within the next five years. The chips will serve key sectors including consumer electronics, automobiles, and electric vehicles. To be sure, Thursday's inauguration was only for the pilot OSAT facility. The larger unit, nearly 20 times bigger with a built-up area of over 1 million sq ft and located three kilometers from the pilot line, is expected to be inaugurated next year....