Semiconductor Startup Aheesa Unveils Vihaan-I Broadband Chip, Targets 2027 Commercialisation

Fabless semiconductor startup Aheesa Digital Innovations unveiled Vihaan-I, an indigenously designed broadband networking chip, at Semicon India 2026 in New Delhi, marking the company’s move from chip design and silicon validation towards commercial deployment. 

The fabless semiconductor company is targeting early 2027 for commercialisation and has signed partnerships covering packaging, product development, and distribution.

Vihaan-I is designed for broadband and fibre networks and Aheesa positions it as an Indian-designed alternative to imported silicon currently used across much of the country’s telecom and broadband equipment ecosystem.

“With Vihaan-I, we have a working silicon designed in India, by an Indian team, for India's networks. Our focus is now on getting this chip into the hands of India's broadband and telecom equipment makers,” Saket Singh, Director and Chief Growth Officer, Aheesa Digital Innovations, said in a statement.

Vihaan-I was taped out on January 26, 2026, and achieved first-pass silicon success on August 15, according to Aheesa. The company said the first-pass success validates the chip design and allows it to now focus on productisation and deployment.

The chip is built on the open-standard RISC-V architecture and uses the indigenous VEGA processor developed by C-DAC. 

Aheesa said Vihaan-I’s development was supported by the Ministry of Electronics and IT’s Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme, which supports domestic semiconductor design capabilities.

With the silicon validated, Aheesa is now building out the ecosystem required to take Vihaan-I into commercial products.

The company has signed a packaging MoU with Optilink Networks, which will support product development from prototyping through packaging, as well as the joint development of broadband customer equipment based on Vihaan-I.

Aheesa has also entered into a distribution partnership with The Zigma Technologies India as it prepares to take the chip to the market.