Netrasemi, a fabless semiconductor startup supported by Zoho, introduced its edge AI System-on-Chip called A2000 on Thursday. Commercial production is planned to begin next year. The chip targets applications such as drone and CCTV surveillance, robotics, intelligent video gateways, and industrial automation.
Fabricated on a 12 nm process at TSMC in Taiwan, the device was developed by the Thiruvananthapuram-based company. Netrasemi has received government design-linked incentive support and has secured Rs 125 crore in funding from Unicorn India Ventures and Zoho. It is now discussing early sample access with global OEMs to support further research and joint development.
The SoC provides smart vision and real-time video analytics for on-device AI in cameras and edge platforms. It aims at high AI performance measured in TOPS, along with computer vision, video streaming, secure boot, and interfaces including PCIe. One of India’s limited number of AI/ML chips, it incorporates the company’s own neural processor, vision cores, image signal processor, crypto engines, and other acceleration blocks. It also uses a patented heterogeneous graph-stream parallel processing architecture.
Cofounder and chief executive Jyothis Indirabhai stated that the chips combine proprietary hardware acceleration with domain-specific optimisations for high-performance, real-time edge AI in compact, power-efficient and cost-sensitive devices. The firm is working with several OEMs on sample evaluations, co-development and advanced R&D.
Government design-linked incentive and infrastructure support were instrumental in reaching this milestone. Netrasemi was among the first four startups chosen for such support in 2023 by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
In partnership with College of Engineering Trivandrum, the company has created another SoC, the R1000 AI/ML MCU, for the IoT sensor market under the Chip-to-Startup programme. That design was sent for fabrication last month. Work is also under way on an advanced edge AI server chip, A4000, with ministry backing; it is scheduled to be fabrication-ready in the second quarter of next year.
