Cypress to set up $50 million solar fab in India
Cypress Semiconductor is in talks with the government of Andhra Pradesh in southern India to set up a solar “fab center” that would produce solar cells and wafers.
Cypress has mentioned India as a possible location for manufacturing solar cells that are in growing demand. The Philippines, where SunPower maintains an office, has also been mentioned as a possible location for the fab
The company plans an investment of $50 million in the manufacturing site, according to a report in The Hindu Business Line from New Delhi on Thursday (Dec. 21), quoting Pidigu Narayana, director of the Cypress design center in Hyderabad.
A new site is likely to be a unit of SunPower Corp. (San Jose, Calif.), the Cypress energy subsidiary.
Cypress also plans to double staffing at its design center here to 600 while a small team in Hyderabad will be doubled to 40. Cypress works with several Indian partners, including Wipro Technologies and Persistent Technologies. Both are developing applications based on Cypress chips.
More deals are expected here next year in other market segments such as computing, auto and consumer electronics and energy equipment.
More than half of Cypress’ chip design work is located in India.
