Tata Electronics Signs ASML as Lithography Partner for India's $11 Billion Dholera 300mm Fab

Overview

Tata Electronics and ASML signed a memorandum of understanding on May 16 in The Hague to make the Dutch lithography vendor the equipment partner for Tata’s Dholera semiconductor fab in Gujarat, according to ASML’s joint press release. The same release puts the planned total investment at “US$11 Bn” for what will be a 300 mm (12 inch) wafer fab, and says ASML will deploy its “holistic suite of advanced lithography tools and solutions” for the site.

The MoU was signed during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the Netherlands and was associated with talks between Modi and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, as reported by Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera notes that the facility is in Gujarat, Modi’s home state, and that ASML — described as “Europe’s largest technology company by market value” — manufactures the advanced lithography machines used to produce high-end microchips.

What We Know

The Dholera fab is the same project Tata Electronics announced in February 2024 alongside Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC), which licensed the underlying process technology. Tata’s original fab announcement put the cost at “up to INR 91,000 crores (~US$11bn),” the capacity at “up to 50,000 wafers per month,” and the node coverage at “leading edge and mature nodes including 28nm, 40nm, 55nm, 90nm & 110nm.” The same announcement said the fab would make “power management IC, display drivers, microcontrollers (MCU) and high-performance computing logic” for markets including “automotive, computing and data storage, wireless communication and artificial intelligence.”

The ASML MoU layers a lithography supplier onto that footprint. In their joint statement, the two companies said the partnership will focus on “deploying ASML’s holistic suite of advanced lithography tools and solutions for the Dholera Fab” and on co-developing “domestic talent, supply chain, and research initiatives,” per ASML. Applications are listed as “automotive, mobile devices, artificial intelligence (AI), and other key segments, to serve customers globally,” according to the mirror of the release on Tata Electronics’ newsroom.

Dr. Randhir Thakur, CEO and MD of Tata Electronics, said in the release that “ASML’s deep expertise in holistic lithography solutions will ensure the timely ramp of our Fab in Dholera,” per Tata.com. Christophe Fouquet, ASML’s President and CEO, said “India’s rapidly expanding semiconductor sector represents many compelling opportunities, and we are committed to establishing long-term partnerships in the region,” per the same release.

The political framing was just as explicit. At the signing, Modi said “India’s strides in the world of semiconductors offer immense opportunities for the youth,” and Jetten said Dutch firms “can help India enormously to invest heavily there in the coming years,” as reported by Daily Sabah. Daily Sabah notes the visit was Modi’s second to the Netherlands since 2017 and part of a five-nation European tour through the UAE, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Italy. The MoU sits alongside a broader bilateral relationship; Modi was received at the Dutch prime minister’s residence on May 16, with the deal announcement following the next day.

The Tech Portal added context on capacity ambitions and the broader project shape, reporting the Dholera fab’s target as “50,000 wafer starts per month (WSPM)” running “28 nm, 40 nm, 55 nm, 90 nm, and 110 nm,” with planned “advanced packaging and testing capabilities” alongside the front-end line, per The Tech Portal. Those capacity and node figures match the original Tata-PSMC announcement and have not been revised by the new MoU; the May 16 partnership specifically adds ASML as the lithography vendor for the same footprint.

ASML’s India Footprint and Industry Context

For ASML, the Tata partnership extends a customer base that, until now, has been concentrated in Taiwan, South Korea, the United States, Japan, and China. The company’s order book has continued to swell on AI demand: Machine Herald previously reported that ASML raised its 2026 revenue guidance to 36-40 billion euros after first-quarter sales of 8.8 billion euros, citing AI-driven capacity expansion at memory and logic customers. The Dholera deal is at the more mature end of that customer mix — Tata’s announced node range tops out at 28 nm, which uses immersion deep-ultraviolet (DUV) tools rather than extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) — but it is a new geography for ASML’s installed base.

The Tech Portal pegged ASML’s market capitalization at “over $350 billion” and annual revenues at “exceeding €27 billion (~$30 billion),” with a single EUV system costing “$180-350 million per unit,” per its report. The Dholera fab’s mature-node mix will lean on the older immersion DUV scanners that today still account for the bulk of installed wafer-step capacity worldwide.

The broader political context is the India-Netherlands Strategic Partnership announced during the same visit, plus several preceding Tata Electronics partnerships. Tata Electronics’ agreement with PSMC — under which PSMC will “provide design and construction support” and “license a broad portfolio of technologies” — supplied the process recipes; the ASML MoU supplies the lithography tools that will run them.

What We Don’t Know

Neither the ASML press release nor the Indian-side mirror discloses the number or specific model of ASML lithography systems Tata has committed to buy, the delivery schedule, the unit price, or the fraction of the fab’s tool budget the lithography line represents. The Tech Portal’s WSPM target of 50,000 wafers per month traces back to the 2024 Tata-PSMC announcement rather than the MoU itself, and ASML’s release does not restate it.

The May 16 release also does not include a node-by-node breakdown of the lithography order — whether all five announced PSMC nodes (28, 40, 55, 90 and 110 nm) will run from initial ramp or whether some will come in a later phase, and whether the line is sized for high-volume 28 nm production from day one. Production timelines for first wafer-out at Dholera, the calibration window for the ASML tools, and the date Tata expects qualified production wafers are all absent from the MoU coverage in any of the cited sources.

The MoU is also a memorandum of understanding, not a binding purchase agreement. ASML’s quarterly disclosures attribute orders by region only after they are booked; whether the Tata commitment converts into a tracked order in Q2 or Q3 2026 — and how large that order is relative to ASML’s roughly 36-40 billion euro 2026 revenue range — will only become visible when ASML reports those quarters.