Karnataka IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge launches government’s ambitious SAFL 2.0
Bengaluru, NFAPost: The Semiconductor Fabless Accelerator Lab (SFAL), a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Fabless Semiconductors, is an initiative towards developing and enhancing the Fabless Semiconductor and electronic systems ecosystem in India.
The focus of SFAL is around enabling fabless semiconductor startups, across India and encouraging the creation and development of Products/IPs from India. Speaking at the government initiative to launch SAFL 2.0, Karnataka IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge said currently India is the second-largest consumer of semiconductors globally.
“Our market size is expected to be $64 billion in market size by 2026 in Semicon. Because of rapid adoption of technologies and penetrations of the internet, like 5G, 6G, and IOT, our electronic market consumption will be $400 billion within 2025,” said Karnataka IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge.
He also highlighted that Karnataka is future ready and concentrating on two very important things – Skilling and incubation for innovation.
“This is not our demand but our need because 70% of design talent is in Karnataka. When we went to America, we were proud to hear from them that every chip that goes into the market has a Kannadiga writing a code for it,” said Karnataka IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge.
Karnataka IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge said SFAL began its journey in a collaboration industry stakeholders.
“In 2023, the 1st batch came out, and they are highly skilled engineers, and the training given to
them is very expensive but it made the minimum package for them as 1.5 lakhs per month.
Training is one part, and the other one is propelling innovation with the government. If we make
good policies, it will surely help Karnataka State and India,” said Karnataka IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge.
Karnataka IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge proudly said this Semiconductor Fabless Accelerator Lab (SFAL) was initiated during his previous tenure as the information technology minister.
“It was very difficult to initiate with the government, and it was rejected also. Then we went to our CM and Financial Department and convinced them of the need for this. The seeds that were sown 5-6 years ago as the center of excellence for Semiconductor Fabless Accelerator Lab – this helped to develop the semiconductor industry and system enhance ecosystems not only in Karnataka but also in India. The ecosystem is so good that everyone is benefiting,” said Karnataka IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge.
Karnataka IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge said SAFAL spent over 27 crore cumulatively on the center of excellence. It has impacted the growth of 95+ companies, and they have incubated around 43 companies.
“This is a very niche area, and maybe only 8–7 countries are using it, and our initiative has innovated. More than 200 innovations helped by this. The SAFL incubated startup raised around 114 crore and has a combined valuation of 500 crore,” said Karnataka IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge.
Karnataka IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge said this is a very unique model and no state is doing this. “The SFAL model is trying to be replicated. Gujarat and Tamil Nadu governments are consulting the government of Karnataka to replicate the SAFL model in their state. We have approved SAFL 2.0 and we will continue this engagement for the next 5 years,” said Karnataka IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge.
The objective of SFAL is an effort to provide efficient mechanisms to bolster the semiconductor fabless startups and electronics systems startups in the country. Since its inception SFAL has played a key role in enabling technology validation, technology collaboration, business and technology mentorship and facilitating access to government policies and funding for several fabless startups.
SFAL has also actively collaborated with Industry partners like IESA, KITS, academia and several industry partners (Including global majors) to create a positive impact on the ESDM industry in the state and country.
The agency has been consulted by state and the central Government agencies (such as MeITY) on building and growing the design ecosystem in the state and country. Some of SFAL’s achievements and activities include
In addition to a total 90+ beneficiary companies (Direct and Indirect), SFAL has built a pipeline of 40+ companies through a rigorous selection process, who are eligible to be incubated. SFAL has demonstrated successful exits, selection of SFAL companies for the Government of India’s Chip 2 Startup (C2S) and Design Linked Incentive (DLI) programmes and creation of IP’s and product innovations.
Calligo Technologies, a prominent Bengaluru-based fabless semiconductor startup, has successfully fabricated and manufactured a POSIT-enabled semiconductor chip. This significant milestone is poised to enhance performance and accuracy in critical mathematical computations.
POSIT technology, a disruptive and hardware-friendly evolution of unums, is set to become a new standard in computing. POSITs offer improved accuracy, network bandwidth, and storage utilisation while reducing power consumption. This technology is particularly advantageous for applications in stock exchange computations, medical drug research, and artificial intelligence.
In collaboration with the Semiconductor Fabless Accelerator Lab (SFAL), Calligo Technologies has introduced a groundbreaking hardware solution with this silicon semiconductor chip. SFAL and Calligo Technologies have been collaborating since 2020, and this achievement marks a proud moment for both entities. Earlier this year, Calligo Technologies achieved a successful tapeout of their chip design.
Another SFAL supported company, Morphing Machines was founded in 2006 as a fabless semiconductor IP products and solutions company through the Technology Entrepreneurship initiative of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) at Bangalore.
Launched with a vision to revolutionise the semiconductor industry, the company focuses on innovations centered around its flagship product, REDEFINE™, a runtime reconfigurable many-core processor. In a testament to its potential and achievements, Morphing Machines secured $2.76 million in a seed funding round led by Speciale Invest.
Morphing Machines flagship product, REDEFINE™, is the first truly runtime reconfigurable processor in India and globally. This polymorphic ASIC, based on the extensible RISC-V ISA, is designed to cater to emerging workloads in various application areas such as telecom, AI-ML, healthcare, and high-performance computing.
AB Circuits and Research Labs (ABCRL) is another pioneering SFAL company in the automotive semiconductor industry, dedicated to making vehicles safer and more efficient through smart electronics.
ABCRL is one of the ten startups nationwide supported under the prestigious Chips to Startup (C2S) scheme by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India. ABCRL specialises in full-stack solutions, from designing chips (ICs) for vehicle sensors and electronics to developing software and analytics.
Their flagship product, TireSynapse®, is the industry’s first tire monitoring ASIC with integrated Bluetooth®. This tiny chip offers advanced features such as tire wear prediction, road condition detection, load detection, wheel alignment measurement, and balancing assessment, setting new standards in vehicle safety and efficiency.
ABCRL is on the cusp of a major milestone with plans to tape out their first chip soon. This achievement will mark a significant step forward in their mission to become the leading provider of smart automotive electronics globally.
Global Foundries India head and SFAL Founding Member Jitendra Chaddah said SFAL has played an enabling role in the development of Semiconductor IP and products ecosystem In India.
“Many SFAL supported companies are developing products for global and local markets and are also getting funded by VCs. This has been made possible by the government of Karnataka’s visionary leadership in support for advancing semiconductor technology” said Global Foundries India head and SFAL Founding Member Jitendra Chaddah.
SFAL, India’s premier fabless and systems design startup accelerator which is supported by the Karnataka Information Technology Society, Government of Karnataka. As a K-Tech Centre of Excellence (CoE) for the fabless community, SFAL is funded by the Department of Electronics, IT, Bt, and S&T of the Government of Karnataka through the Karnataka Innovation Technology Society (KITS).
In collaboration with the India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA), SFAL is dedicated to developing and enhancing the fabless and Electronics systems ecosystem in India.
