Japan’s Hirata Enters India: A New Partnership Aims to Power Up India’s Semiconductor Manufacturing Backbone

India’s semiconductor ambitions just got a serious technology boost. Ahead of Semicon 2026, ATS India has announced a strategic partnership with Japan’s Hirata Corporation, bringing globally proven semiconductor automation equipment to Indian manufacturers for the first time — and it’s arriving right when the country’s chip ecosystem needs it most.

Why this partnership matters?

India’s semiconductor manufacturing sector is still young, and one of its biggest bottlenecks has been access to reliable, world-class backend equipment. Indian manufacturers have historically dealt with long lead times, cross-border coordination headaches, and limited local support just to get the automation tools they need. Hirata’s formal entry through ATS India directly targets that gap.

This isn’t a cold start either — Hirata and ATS have worked together for over a decade across sectors like automotive, and that trust is now extending into the far more technically demanding world of semiconductor manufacturing.

Hirata: Overview

What Hirata actually brings to the table?

Hirata specializes in precision automation and material-handling technology used across semiconductor, electronics, and automotive manufacturing worldwide. Its portfolio includes Equipment Front End Modules (EFEMs), FOPLP Load Ports, PLP Panel Handling Robots, and high-performance Wafer Handling Robots — the kind of equipment that enables precise, reliable wafer and panel handling across chip fabrication and advanced packaging lines.

In this initial phase, Hirata will focus on standard product offerings rather than custom solutions, a deliberate move given where India’s semiconductor ecosystem currently stands. As the market matures, the partnership plans to expand into more application-specific technology.

What the leadership is saying?

ATS India CEO Kishen Kavikondala framed the deal as building foundational infrastructure — local commercial, technical, and service capability that Indian semiconductor manufacturers will need as capacity scales over the next decade. He pointed to India’s equipment design capabilities as a multi-million-dollar opportunity by 2030, and noted that local availability removes the dependency on cross-border logistics and delayed technical support that have slowed adoption so far.

Hirata Corporation of America VP John Derzy called India one of the company’s most important growth markets, emphasizing that the partnership’s real goal is bringing automation to OSAT (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test) operations, which remain largely manual or semi-automated in India today. He expects automation to be Hirata’s biggest differentiator here, aiming to bring India the same equipment technology that powers semiconductor hubs in Japan, Malaysia, and Taiwan.

The bigger picture for India’s chip ambitions

This move aligns closely with the Indian government’s ongoing push to build domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity, part of a broader China+1 diversification trend reshaping global electronics supply chains. With the EMS sector expected to grow nearly fourfold by FY30, the timing of this partnership — landing just ahead of Semicon 2026 — signals real momentum behind India’s push to become a credible global manufacturing hub rather than just an assembly destination.

Beyond direct employment, the collaboration is also expected to strengthen local supply chains and drive skill development in precision manufacturing, positioning both companies as key enablers of India’s self-reliant electronics ecosystem over the next several years.

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