Thiruvananthapuram-based fabless startup Netrasemi has announced successful silicon bring-up of its flagship A2000 Edge AI System-on-Chip, one of India's first homegrown AI/ML chips designed end-to-end on Indian soil. Manufactured on TSMC's 12nm process technology, the A2000 is being readied for commercial production with select OEMs as India steps up its push to build sovereign semiconductor capacity.
An NPU, VPU and ISP on One Patented Architecture
The A2000 integrates Netrasemi's in-house Neural Processing Unit (NPU), Vision Processing Units (VPU), Image Signal Processor (ISP), crypto engines and a suite of hardware acceleration IP cores. The chip is built on the company's patented heterogeneous graph-stream parallel processing architecture, which Netrasemi says is optimised for compact, power-sensitive edge devices that still need to run high-TOPS workloads.
According to co-founder and CEO Jyothis Indirabhai, the design "goes beyond conventional AI/ML integration by combining proprietary hardware acceleration IPs with domain-specific optimisations tailored for high-performance, real-time edge AI." The SoC supports smart vision, real-time video analytics and significant I/O capabilities including PCIe, and includes secure-boot to lock down the camera-class endpoints it targets.
Designed for Cameras, Drones and Robotics
Netrasemi is positioning the A2000 at smart cameras for surveillance, intelligent video gateways, edge AI boxes and applications across automotive, robotics and drones. Engineering samples are now being shared with global OEMs for joint R&D and early evaluations, with several pilot projects underway in surveillance and automotive use cases. Volume production at TSMC's Taiwan fabs is slated for 2027.
Built With Government Support and Zoho Backing
The chip's silicon bring-up was supported by the Government of India's Ministry of Electronics and IT under its Design Linked Incentive (DLI) and Design Infrastructure Support (DIS) schemes. Netrasemi was one of the first four startups selected for a 15 crore rupee DLI grant in 2023 and has raised about 125 crore rupees in total funding from investors including Zoho and Unicorn India Ventures.
India's Edge AI Push Gathers Pace
The launch arrives as India accelerates broader semiconductor ambitions, including Tata Electronics' Dholera 300mm fab partnership with ASML and a wave of design-led startups going after edge inference workloads. Edge AI silicon is increasingly viewed as essential to bringing perception, video analytics and autonomy off the cloud, with rivals like Mythic and Videantis building hybrid analogue-digital and vision-centric architectures for the same workloads.
What's Next
Netrasemi says it is now in early co-development with multiple OEMs to take the A2000 from sample silicon to deployed systems. With the architecture proven on real silicon and commercial production lined up at TSMC for next year, the A2000 is shaping up as a flagship reference point for India's nascent fabless ecosystem.
Reporting based on coverage from TimesTech, MyStartupNews, VARINDIA and CXOToday.