IESA and Government of Karnataka (GoK) launches India’s first of its kind Semiconductor Fabless Accelerator Lab

India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA) has launched the Fabless Centre of Excellence – the Semiconductor Fabless Accelerator Lab (SFAL).

The SFAL will be a first-of-its-kind initiative in the semiconductor space. It will create a strong infrastructural support structure to incubate early-stage startups and accelerate the existing fabless SMEs to the next level by providing access to funds, market and mentors. The focus of this accelerator will be to incubate at least 20 early stage fabless start-ups in next 3 years, 50 in the next 5 years. Through the SFAL, the IESA expects to generate more employment in the ESDM sector, encourage creation of more domestic IP and serve as a catalyst to accelerate the fabless startup ecosystem.

Shri. K. J. George, Minister for Large & Medium Scale Industries, IT, BT and S&T, Government of Karnataka, said “The Government of Karnataka has already made an investment of INR 21.5 crores and the total spends is expected to touch INR 56 crores in the next 5years. Our vision is to make Karnataka the hub around which the next breed of Indian fabless startups can thrive and accentuate the existing fabless companies into the next realm of growth. Along with IESA, we are certain to propel the ESDM sector and support innovative domestic companies.”

“Bengaluru has become home to innovation, invention and entrepreneurship. We are seeing a huge uptake towards ESDM and how it is contributing to creating millions of employment opportunities. In collaboration with IESA, the launch of SFAL, will mark our efforts to cultivate this ecosystem, create a favourable market to inculcate the fabless ecosystem, and encourage manufacturing not only in Karnataka but across the Country.” said Sh. Gaurav Gupta, IAS, Principal Secretary, IT, BT and S&T, Government of Karnataka.

The expected outcomes of SFAL are:

• Accelerate existing fabless SMEs - Support existing fabless SMEs to help them design and prototype at least 2-3 products of out of the accelerator in 2 years.
• Stimulate fabless start-up ecosystem – incubate at least 20 early stage fabless start-ups in next 3 years, 50 in the next 5 years.
• Enable domestic chips for local market – Enable fabless start-ups to design chips for products like Energy meters, LED lighting, Smartcards, Rural broadband, IoT solutions etc.
• Domestic IP creation – Help the local ecosystem to produce indigenous semiconductor IPs.
• Employment creation – Projected job creation of about 800 high skilled engineers and more into allied areas.

“IESA has a vision to make India as the global hub of electronics system design and manufacturing by 2025. In this direction, we conducted a research and realized quite early that design led manufacturing is the right solution for promoting the growth of electronics industry in India. IESA has promoted several incubation centers and center of excellences across in India and mainly in Karnataka state, with the help Karnataka Government.  SFAL is one such initiative from IESA, which is supported by Karnataka Government, for promoting ecosystem to encourage innovation and manufacturing in the ESDM industry. The Government of Karnataka is continuously putting in place policies and building a framework to inculcate a fabless ecosystem and encourage manufacturing in the State. The IESA is excited to partner with the Government to make India a design-led electronics manufacturing hub in the coming years.” said Mr. Anil Kumar Muniswamy, Chairman, IESA.

Mr. Rajesh Ram Mishra - President, IESA at the signing of the MoU, said “We are excited with the launch and operationalization of Fabless CoE (SFAL), in collaboration with the Government of Karnataka. The facility is equipped to give Indian fabless start-ups and SMEs access to state-of-the-art R&D infrastructure to develop IP and chips, thereby, reducing the entry barrier. Our aim is to incubate 3-4 companies in the new facility by March 2019. SFAL fills a critical gap in our ESDM ecosystem that will prepare us as a country to capitalize on the mega trends unleashed by intelligent electronics. IESA will unveil the trillion-dollar design-led manufacturing opportunities around the mega trends at the Vision Summit to be held on February 19^th and 20^th 2019 at Bengaluru.

“Start-ups based anywhere in the country have now the opportunity to access software from SFAL which the entire ecosystem can largely be benefited. SFAL will be the centre to access tools and drive design innovation”, said Mr. Murali Seshadri, Senior Product Manager, Mentor.

Speaking at the event, Mr. Jaswinder Ahuja, Corporate Vice President and Managing Director, Cadence Design Systems said “Bangalore has emerged as the hub for technology and innovation which has led to investment in the state creating a new wave of manufacturing and entrepreneurship. SFAL in collaboration with Government of Karnataka is helping entrepreneurs ride this fresh wave of innovation and provide solutions to existing problems in the state. Generally, entrepreneurs take 6 to 8 months to figure out necessary tools required to start building technology. This time needs to be reduced so that entrepreneurs can focus on innovation. SFAL is thus the step in the right direction.”

“Acceleration is not just happening in the technology world but also across the marketplace and in relation to global climatic change which is connected by chips (technology). We are happy that Bangalore has added a small chip to access facilities and create a starting point to solve challenges across the whole value chain.”, said Prof. HP Khincha, Ex Vice Chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum, speaking at the event.

The IESA report at Vision Summit 2018 established that the Indian semiconductor component market is estimated to see a huge market growth of 32.35 billion by 2025. Growing at a CAGR of 10.1 from 2018 to 2025.