New Delhi, May 30: India’s semiconductor design ecosystem achieved a key milestone as Thiruvananthapuram-based fabless startup Netrasemi successfully completed silicon bring-up of the country’s first flagship Edge AI System-on-Chip (SoC), ‘NETRA A2000’, developed at the advanced 12nm technology node.
Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw hailed the achievement, stating that India’s Design-Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme is delivering encouraging results and helping accelerate domestic semiconductor innovation.
According to the minister, the NETRA A2000 is designed to support smart vision devices and real-time AI applications across sectors such as surveillance, automotive, robotics and drones.
The chip has successfully completed silicon bring-up, a critical stage validating chip functionality after fabrication, and is now moving towards commercial production.
Fabricated at TSMC using its 12nm process technology, the chip targets high-TOPS AI performance, computer vision processing, video streaming and secure edge computing applications.
The SoC integrates Netrasemi’s proprietary Neural Processing Unit (NPU), Vision Processing Unit (VPU), Image Signal Processor (ISP), crypto engines and specialised hardware acceleration IP cores.
A key differentiator is the inclusion of the company’s patented heterogeneous graph-stream parallel processing architecture, designed to improve high-performance, real-time edge AI processing.
According to the startup, the chip will be shared with select original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for collaborative research and product development aimed at expanding commercial applications.
Commercial-scale production is expected to begin next year at TSMC’s fabrication facilities in Taiwan, the company said.
Jyothis Indirabhai, Co-founder and CEO of Netrasemi, said the SoC moves beyond traditional AI integration by combining proprietary hardware acceleration and domain-specific optimisation for edge AI workloads.
The development also underscores the role of the government’s Design-Linked Incentive (DLI) and Design Infrastructure Support (DIS) schemes in supporting semiconductor startups.
Netrasemi was among the first four startups selected for Rs 15 crore support under the DLI scheme in 2023, and the company has raised a total of Rs 125 crore in funding so far.
The achievement is viewed as a significant step in India’s semiconductor ambitions, strengthening indigenous chip design capabilities and supporting the broader Semicon India mission.
