SUMMARY
Founded in 2018, InCore Semiconductors is focussed on developing semiconductor processor IPs based on RISC-V open-source architecture.
InCore is not a fabless chip maker but an IP company, which caters to system-on-chips (SoC) companies and helps them design chips as per their varied customer requirements
After almost five years of staying bootstrapped, InCore bagged $3 Mn in its seed funding round from Peak XV in 2023 to make its dream a bigger reality
For decades, the British company ARM dominated the intellectual property (IP) market in the semiconductor industry. However, the arrival of RISC-V, the open standard instruction set architecture (ISA), a few years ago, challenged ARM’s monopoly in the market, giving a much-needed shift to the global semiconductor ecosystem.
Many leading fabless design companies, such as Qualcomm and NVIDIA, and even Samsung and Google, which were earlier dependent only on SoftBank-owned ARM’s IP offerings, also started developing their own RISC-V processors for varied applications.
Back home, IIT Madras brought in a major revolution with the country’s first home-grown microprocessor, SHAKTI, which was open-source and built on top of RISC-V.
Started around 2012, the SHAKTI programme was led by current IIT Madras director, professor Veezhinathan Kamakoti, who was soon joined by G.S. Madhusudan, Neel Gala, Arjun Menon, and others.
Realising that more semiconductor companies would need vertically integrated customisable IP cores in the not-so-distant future, given the growing market of consumer electronic devices, automotive, AI, and various computing devices, they founded InCore Semiconductors in 2018.
Today, the startup is focussed on developing semiconductor processor IPs based on RISC-V open-source architecture. Its suite of offerings can be integrated into chips for a variety of embedded applications, including wearables, smart IoT devices, PoS terminals, and more. Notably, Gautam Doshi, a seasoned industry expert, joined the initiative later.
InCore’s Inception
InCore is not a fabless chip maker, it is an IP company, which caters to system-on-chips (SoC) companies and helps them design chips as per their varied customer requirements.
For the uninitiated, in semiconductor parlance, IPs are a set of specifications, source codes, and other such information that are required to manufacture a given semiconductor.
Back to the story, after working on building the SHAKTI processor, the founders realised that scaling the programme had its challenges as there were requirements for more independent research and efforts to give it a shape that could work as a plug-and-play IP for SoC companies.
However, only four years after incorporating the startup, in 2022, InCore became confident that RISC-V was there to stay as some of the top semiconductor companies started betting on the technology and the community behind it was growing.
After almost five years of staying bootstrapped, InCore bagged $3 Mn in its seed funding round from Peak XV in 2023 to make its dream a bigger reality.
