The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) on Saturday announced two more semiconductor design startups/MSMEs under the SemiconIndia future DESIGN DLI scheme at the 2nd edition of the SemiconIndia 2023 conference in Gandhinagar.

These two startups/MSMEs selected for support under the DLI scheme are Aheesa Digital Innovations and Calligo Technologies.

Aheesa Digital Innovations Private Limited (Aheesa) is a fabless semiconductor start-up based in Chennai, India, focusing on Telecom, Networking and Cyber Security domains. Aheesa’s founders have over four decades of experience in developing highly successful cutting edge technology solutions from Silicon to Systems. Aheesa proposes to develop the Aheesa Vihaan series of Networking SoCs (System-on-Chip) which are fully designed and developed in India.

The first version of Aheesa Vihaan is based on C-DAC’s VEGA Processor Core based on RISC-V architecture developed under Digital India RISC-V Processor (DIR-V). Aheesa would be releasing the GPON/ EPON ONT reference platform (Aheesa Sheshnag) based on Aheesa Vihaan with OS, drivers, toolchains and applications for Indian Network and Telecom product manufacturers.

Calligo Technologies is a fabless semiconductor start-up based in Bengaluru, India serving HPC, Big Data and AI/ML segments to global companies. It is primarily focussed on improving computing performance using Software and Hardware Acceleration techniques to HPC/AI applications. Calligo is developing an accelerator product capable of doing computations using a new number system – POSITs, that will be an add-on to the host server running HPC/AI workloads.

POSIT is a game changing disruptive invention that has the potential to create new standards for computing. CalligoTech proposes to integrate a multi-core RISC V Processor with this co-processor, creating a highly power-efficient and computationally more accurate CPU – TUNGA (Technology for Unum – based Next Generation Arithmetic) Silicon. This Silicon will power a PCIe-based Accelerator Card – UTTUNGA. This solution does not require any source-level modifications to run the HPC/AI Application.

The DLI scheme aims to offer financial incentives as well as design infrastructure support across various stages of development and deployment of semiconductor design(s) for Integrated Circuits (ICs), Chipsets, System on Chips (SoCs), Systems & IP Cores and semiconductor linked design(s) over a period of five years.

The DLI Scheme is implemented by C-DAC. Under the DLI Scheme, ChipIN centre has been set up at C-DAC as one stop centre to provide chip design & fabrication services to supported companies. Five (05) startups/ MSMEs were earlier approved by MeitY for support under the DLI scheme and announced during the 2nd and 3 rd DLI Roadshows held earlier this year in Bangalore (February) and Delhi (May). With this announcement, a total of 7 start-ups under the DLI Scheme will be working on making chip and IP cores for automotive, mobility and computing sectors.