What does India’s first indigenous broadband chip bring to the country’s networking ecosystem? Vihaan-I has completed first-pass silicon and is now moving towards commercialisation.
Aheesa Digital Innovations has unveiled Vihaan-I, an indigenously designed broadband networking chip, at SEMICON India 2026 in the presence of Union Minister for Electronics and IT – Ashwini Vaishnaw. The (design linked incentive) DLI scheme-backed fabless semiconductor company is targeting early 2027 for commercialisation of the chip.
Vihaan-I is designed for broadband and fibre networking equipment used in homes and offices. It brings core networking functions onto a single system-on-chip (SoC), built on the open-standard reduced instruction set computing-five (RISC-V) architecture and powered by the indigenous VEGA processor developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). Aheesa said the chip was designed in India by its engineering team, apart from standard IP such as Wi-Fi.
In an exclusive interaction with EFY, Saket Singh, director and chief growth officer, Aheesa Digital Innovations, said the company’s immediate focus is on getting Vihaan-I into the hands of broadband and telecom equipment makers. Aheesa has signed a packaging memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Optilink Networks covering product development from prototyping through packaging and joint development of broadband customer equipment. It has also signed a distribution partnership with The Zigma Technologies India.
The company completed Vihaan-I’s tape-out on January 26, 2026, and received the silicon by the end of July. Testing subsequently resulted in first-pass silicon success on August 15, according to Aheesa. The company is now moving from silicon validation towards production readiness and commercial deployment.
The unveiling was also acknowledged amongst the Made-in-India semiconductor developments by the minister. The recognition comes as Aheesa begins building the ecosystem required to take the chip into commercial broadband equipment.
Singh said the company is currently focused on India and South Asia for deployment, while also exploring licensing opportunities in the UK and US. Aheesa plans to remain fabless, with manufacturing handled through external foundry partners. The company said it is currently using United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) and would explore Indian fabs as domestic manufacturing capacity becomes available.
Vihaan-I is also intended to form the foundation for a broader networking semiconductor roadmap. Singh said the company plans to build on the platform beyond its current 1G capability, with future development spanning broadband, telecom and cybersecurity applications.
So, what will it take to move Vihaan-I from successful silicon to commercial deployment? Which broadband equipment makers and manufacturing partners are needed to take the chip into products, and how does the company plan to scale the platform beyond its first version? In a longer interaction with EFY, Singh discussed Vihaan-I’s development, its RISC-V and VEGA foundation, the path from first-pass silicon to commercialisation, and what comes next for the chip.
