New Delhi: India’s semiconductor design ecosystem has recorded another significant milestone with Chennai-based fabless startup Aheesa Digital Innovations achieving first-pass silicon success for its indigenous VIHAAN networking System-on-Chip (SoC). The development marks a move from chip design and development towards silicon validation and eventual commercial production.
Supported under the government’s Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme, VIHAAN has been designed for fibre broadband applications and is based on the indigenous VEGA microprocessor. The chip is aimed at strengthening domestic technology capabilities for expanding fibre broadband connectivity to households across India.
Aheesa taped out the VIHAAN chip on Republic Day 2026 and achieved first-attempt silicon success on Independence Day, an important milestone in the semiconductor development cycle. The company will now focus on further validation and preparing the chip for production, with production tape-out targeted for 2027.
The achievement comes as the government intensifies efforts to develop a domestic semiconductor design ecosystem through initiatives such as the DLI Scheme. The scheme provides financial incentives and design infrastructure support to Indian startups, MSMEs and companies working on integrated circuits, chipsets, SoCs and semiconductor-linked designs.
The broader DLI programme is beginning to show measurable results. Government data has highlighted growing chip-design activity, including multiple tape-outs, fabricated ASICs, patents and increased participation by Indian engineers and startups. More recently, DLI-supported chip companies collectively reported more than $100 million in venture capital funding and 35 chip-design tape-outs, signalling increasing investor confidence in India’s indigenous chip-design capabilities.
For Aheesa, VIHAAN represents more than a successful chip prototype. Its development demonstrates how Indian semiconductor startups are increasingly building proprietary intellectual property for strategic applications such as networking and communications.
The progress also supports India’s broader objective of moving up the electronics value chain—from chip consumption and system integration towards indigenous semiconductor design, intellectual property creation and commercialisation.
