The government's semiconductor manufacturing policy guidelines announced last September appear to be paying off. In one of the largest investments in the sector, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has submitted to the government proposals for two semiconductor units at a combined cost of Rs 30,152 crore. With this, communications & IT minister A Raja told FE, the government has so far received seven proposals envisaging investments totalling Rs 62,915 crore over the next ten years from six leading Companies. RIL's first proposal is for a semiconductor wafer fab with ATMP (assembly-test-mark-pack) facilities at a total outlay of Rs 18,521 crore over ten years. The second proposal, at an outlay of Rs 11,631 crore over a similar period, is for the manufacture of polysilicon, monocrystalline & multicrystalline ingots, solar-grade silicon wafers and solar photovoltaic modules with a capacity of 1 gw. The first unit would be located in Navi Mumbai, Hyderabad, Mysore or Haryana, the final site to be decided after negotiations with the respective state governments on incentives. Around 4,000 people would be employed at this unit. The second plant would be at Jamnagar in Gujarat and is expected to create over 11,000 direct skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled jobs. Globally, a greenfield fab unit typically entails an investment of $3-3.5 billion. Seen in this context, RIL's investment is among the highest not only set against domestic benchmarks but also by international standards. When contacted, an RIL spokesperson said, "The group is currently evaluating investments in an integrated semi-conductor facility. The group will make necessary announcements when the plans are final.'Raja said the proposals received from the other five Companies are for the manufacture of a wide variety of products used in the solar energy sector, liquid crystal displays, integrated circuits and chip-based advanced logic/memory/embedded systems, as well as ATMP facilities for semiconductor devices.