NXP India, among the biggest R&D centres for NXP Semiconductors, on Thursday announced the launch of the first ‘Semiconductor Startup Incubation and Acceleration Program’ in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Fabless Chip Design Incubator (FabCI), IIT-Hyderabad.
The aim is to find, facilitate, and mentor semiconductor and IP design start-ups across India in technological as well as business aspects.
The programme will support India’s vision of becoming a self-reliant nation as it creates a ready platform to support start-ups who wish to design semiconductor chips in India.
The local hardware design and manufacturing of products will strengthen the core technology-driven system pillar vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat.
“The next decade will be all about creating a “world that anticipates & automates” with a lot of smart connected systems around us. All of that will lead into making the planet a better world to live in and fun to innovate in,” said Lars Reger, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, NXP Semiconductors.
“These smart connected systems have a core semiconductor technology at the heart of it. In that context, I see Semiconductor Startup Incubation and Acceleration program can bring the core impetus to the strengthening of fabless semiconductor design in India,” Reger added.
Sanjay Gupta, vice president and India country manager, NXP India, said: “The team… has created a technology startups focused framework with two key initiatives – Tech startup challenge to recognize most innovative Indian Startups products aligned to NXP businesses and technologies and Technology Startup Incubator to nurture and groom young startups with complete enablement, funding and day-to-day guidance” using a unique collaboration with the government and top academic institutes.
The government has been working towards promoting the ESDM sector to bring electronic manufacturing to India. There is also a need to build a thriving fabless design ecosystem in India,” said Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, MeitY.
“We look forward to this joint initiative of NXP Semiconductors and IIT Hyderabad for this Incubation cum Accelerator Program that aims to find, facilitate and mentor the semiconductor and IP design startups pan India,” Sawhney said.
It is a significant step as India is poised to increase its share in innovation-driven global manufacturing of mobile phones, IT hardware, automotive, industrial and medical electronics, IoT and other devices, he added.
Up to five startups will be incubated for a period of two years, every year. Participants will include Semiconductor Chip Design, IP Design, Design Services startups with an IP focus and Chip Design Tool related startups.
“This collaborative effort is a much-needed, perfectly timed impetus to usher in an era of semiconductor ecosystem in India. The endeavours carried out by IIT Hyderabad under the aegis of MeitY to set up Fabless chip design Incubator (FabCI) is the building block of this program,” said B S Murty, Director, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad.
FabCI is a unique incubator that provides free access to highly expensive EDA tools and prototyping, apart from the basic infrastructure, Murty added.
