Mindgrove’s vision chip moves closer to market with Prama MoU

Chennai: Surveillance equipment maker Prama India has agreed to integrate semiconductor startup Mindgrove Technologies’ yet-to-be-developed display system-on-chip (SoC) into its product portfolio once it is ready for commercial use.

The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Monday under which they will jointly work on product development, certification and regulatory requirements.

Mindgrove announced earlier this year that it plans to release a second SoC that can process video and make decisions on the device itself.

Shashwath TR, co-founder and CEO of the company, clarified that the MoU with Prama is not for a special or bespoke chip. Instead, Mindgrove will incorporate the company’s requirements into the vision SoC it is currently developing through hardware and software customization.

“The collaboration is about identifying points of personalization that are important to them and incorporating them into the product,” Shashwath said. Mint.

key breakthrough

The deal marks a major milestone for Mindgrove, its first major customer engagement on its vision chip. The company said working with a customer while the chip is still in development allows both companies to align product requirements before the chip is ready, potentially shortening the time between manufacturing and commercial deployment.

“It takes time for customers to develop prototypes for their markets,” Shashwath said. “If they can do this while we are developing the chip rather than after it is ready, we can have volume flowing within three or four months of mass production.”

The Memorandum of Understanding does not turn into an urgent commercial order. According to the company, the contract will progress through product qualification before moving on to a master sales agreement where pricing, projected volumes and commercial terms will be finalized and production orders will then be placed.

India, which has been lagging behind in the semiconductor field for a long time, is trying to make up for lost time. The government announced in 2021 ₹76,000 crore India Semiconductor Mission to help build an indigenous semiconductor ecosystem.

In recent years, the government has approved semiconductor projects in manufacturing, assembly, testing and outsourced semiconductor packaging by Tata Electronics, Micron Technology, CG Power, Kaynes Technology and others, while the design linked incentive (DLI) program has also supported many Indian fabless chip startups. Most of these projects are still in the development stage.

Mindgrove, incubated at IIT Madras and founded in 2021, is among the startups supported under the DLI programme. The company launched its Secure IoT microcontroller earlier this year.

The timing is important as the country’s new certification rules exclude Chinese manufacturers such as Hikvision and Dahua from the market for internet-connected CCTV cameras.

The government has made it mandatory for manufacturers to disclose the origin of critical components, including the SoC, and comply with stricter security certification norms. Domestic brands such as CP Plus, Qubo, Prama, Matrix and Sparsh have expanded their presence in the market as manufacturers reorganized their supply chains around non-Chinese chipsets.

Closer to commercialization

While Mindgrove did not disclose expected volumes or revenue from the Prama deal, Shashwath said the deal provided an important business reference for the company to approach other customers.

“This gives us credibility with other customers and helps us generate larger volumes,” he said. “As wafer volumes increase, foundries are more willing to work with you and production costs decrease, allowing us to pass these savings on to our customers.”

For Mindgrove, the importance of the deal lies in crossing an important commercial threshold rather than immediate revenue. Until now, the SoC vision has largely been a product in development. Working with a customer that plans to distribute the chip gives the company the opportunity to validate the product in real-world applications and adopt it commercially.

“He doesn’t live in the lab anymore,” Shashwath said. “It’s out of the lab. We’re entering the industry.”