Vedanta picks up David Reed as chief executive of semiconductor business

David Reed, Vedanta's newly appointed CEO to lead its chip business, has spent 35 years in the semiconductor industry.

Vedanta Ltd on February 6 announced that it has appointed David Reed as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of its semiconductor business. Reed was previously at NXP Semiconductors and GlobalFoundaries where he was Executive Vice President and General Manager of global operations.

Vedanta said that Reed will be responsible for setting up a semiconductor fab unit and a semiconductor assembling and testing unit in India.

Reed moved to NXP as part of the company’s merger with American Freescale Semiconductor in 2015. Before that, he was vice president and general manager at GlobalFoundries, a semiconductor contract manufacturing company.

Vedanta added that with 35 years of experience, Reed's international experience includes establishment of a complete semiconductor ecosystem with global execution of wafer fabrication, research and development, assembly and testing, total quality management and packaging, and supply chain management.

Recently in September 2022, billionaire Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta had selected Gujarat for its semiconductor project in a major step in its $20-billion joint venture with Taiwan's Foxconn. The project will include display and semiconductor facilities near Ahmedabad.

The Mumbai-headquartered oil-to-metals conglomerate has obtained financial and non-financial subsidies including capital expenditure and cheap electricity from Gujarat to build the semiconductor plants.

Meanwhile, shares of Vedanta on February 6 closed 2.56 percent lower at Rs 306.25 apiece on BSE.

India's semiconductor market is estimated to reach $63 billion by 2026 from $15 billion in 2020. Most of the world's chip output is limited to a few countries like Taiwan and late-entrant India is now actively luring companies to “usher in a new era in electronics manufacturing” as it seeks ways to have seamless access to chips.