Today we bring you another conversation in our series on deep tech in India. Shashwath T Ramkumar and Sharan S Jagathrakshakan started Mindgrove, incubated at IIT-Madras, to build semiconductor systems-on-chip for applications in IoT (Internet of Things), computer vision and automotive sectors.

Built on the Shakti microprocessor, developed at IIT Madras, Shashwath and Sharan are hoping that the tape-out of their first prototype SoC, meaning making the physical chip from their design, will be a first small step contributing designed-in-India semiconductor processors.

We recorded this episode in second half of September, so I asked the founders for a quick update this morning. And “yes, the prototype production run started on November 15 as scheduled,” Shashwath wrote back. “It was a marathon run at the end but all looks good,” he says.

And pending a few updates from the foundry and on the packaging side they expect to have samples available early in the new year.