C2i Semiconductors, an Indian chip startup, has taped-out its power management chip that will address the growing energy need to power the graphic processing units amid the AI boom.
Tape-out refers to a final stage in semiconductor development, where after a chip is designed, it is sent to a foundry for manufacturing.
Speaking to ET, Ram Anant, CEO and cofounder of C2i Semiconductors, said that power management is becoming a bottleneck as companies are beginning to realise that due to AI workloads what used to be few kilowatts of power in a data center rank is becoming 100 kilowatts now. In addition, as data centers draw more power, it generates more heat, which induces lack of reliability.
C2i Semiconductor’s chip looks to address this challenge. The company was founded by former Texas Instruments executives Ram Anant, Preetam Tadeparthy, Vikram Gakhar, and BS Dattatreya in 2024. The firm has so far raised a total of $19 million from Peak XV Partners, Yali Capital, and TDK Ventures. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is also an investor and adviser for the company.
The company is working with foundries in China and Taiwan, and the initial tape out will have six wafers accounting for about 21,000 chips.
Dattatreya said that once they get the wafers, the firm will then test these chips, validate them with customers, check performance, and make changes before going for another round of tape out. According to him, this could take anywhere from eight to nine months.
The startup is working with customers in India and overseas and has IP for the same. Their customers include makers of graphic processing units, central processing units, telecom servers, and embedded processing. According to Anant, the power management market is over $85 billion globally, and their target market size is about $13 billion.
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