Fabless Startup Aheesa Tapes Out First Indian RISC-V Network SoC

Aheesa Digital Innovations has taped out a 28-nm RISC-V-based broadband access SoC designed and developed in India.

By Yashasvini Razdan, EE Times | February 5, 2026

Indian fabless semiconductor startup Aheesa Digital Innovations has completed the tape-out of a domestically designed RISC-V-based broadband networking SoC, called VIHAAN-I, targeting optical fiber access networks used by telecom operators to deliver last-mile connectivity to homes and offices.

The chip is designed for gigabit passive optical network (GPON) and Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) optical network terminal applications and will be released as part of Aheesa’s Seshnag platform. UMC is manufacturing the chip.

In an exclusive interview with EE Times, Aheesa founder and CEO Sridharan Mani described VIHAAN-I as the first RISC-V-based broadband access SoC to be fully designed and developed in India. “VIHAAN-I is a 28-nm network SoC that integrates compute, broadband access, and system control on a single chip and is built around the CDAC Vega processor core based on the RISC-V architecture,” he said.

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