T-Hub incubated chip design startup Deepgrid Semi looking to raise ₹25 cr

Founder Aravind Prasad says company aims to complete tapeout within next 10 months

Semiconductor chip designer and manufacturing startup, Deepgrid Semi, is looking to raise ₹25 crore to begin tape-out and marketing of its artificial intelligence-powered System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), said the company’s Founder Aravind Prasad.

 

“We have achieved the technology know-how and started deploying it in an FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array), where the cost for one chipset is around ₹35,000. If we want to bring the cost down to ₹3,000 per chipset, we must tape out, which will cost around $3 million,” he said.

 

The startup, incubated at T-Hub, a leading startup incubator, aims to complete tape-out of these SoC chipsets within the next 10 months, depending on how conversations with venture capitalists and angel investors go, he said.

 

 

To convince investors, Deepgrid Semi is looking to create multiple use cases for FPGAs, which, in turn, shows the product's traction, Prasad said. An FPGA is a semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) that allows users to configure and reprogram logic blocks and interconnects after manufacturing. These ICs can be updated quickly, depending on field trials.

 

“We have conducted some field trials on humanoids, autonomous mobile robots (AMR), and automated guided vehicles (AGV) for sea ports. It is better for a company like ours to focus on use cases as we raise money. Even after we raise money, we would like to scale our use cases only,” he said.

 

The company is also in talks with a few domestic and international commercial and personal vehicle makers that manufacture their vehicles in India for field trials of the ADAS chipsets, Prasad said, adding that there is a lack of an ecosystem for these solutions.

 

“Even some of the companies that have been funded by the government under the Design Linked Incentive scheme are finding it difficult to convince their buyers and have to ask the government to find some solution,” he said.