Chennai – Mindgrove Technologies, a fabless semiconductor company headquartered at the IIT Madras Research Park, has entered into a commercial partnership with Pinetics, a Pune-based electronic product design and development firm. The two-year agreement marks the first time an Indian semiconductor company’s chips will be integrated into commercial biometric access control systems, smart locks, and camera applications, with plans to expand across additional product categories.
The partnership addresses a persistent gap in India’s electronics value chain: the absence of commercially viable, domestically designed chips and modules in finished products. While India has established capabilities in PCB design and assembly, nearly all semiconductor components have historically been imported. This collaboration changes that equation by creating a System on Module around Mindgrove’s silicon, giving OEMs and ODMs their first access to indigenous chips at the product layer.
Pinetics brings end-to-end ODM and design capabilities that extend Mindgrove’s silicon downstream. By building systems on module around Mindgrove’s chips, Pinetics enables indigenous semiconductor technology at the module and solution level, not just the component level. This partnership addresses a critical gap in the Indian electronics ecosystem, where vertical integration from chip to finished product has long been a missing link. Mindgrove’s silicon is the foundation. Pinetics ensures it reaches the hands of product builders.
“This partnership reflects the kind of industry adoption that makes India’s semiconductor ambitions real,” said Shashwath TR, Co-founder and CEO of Mindgrove Technologies. “When domestic product companies choose to build on Indian silicon, it accelerates the entire value chain. With Pinetics, we are putting an indigenous chip at the heart of products that millions of Indians use every day. We look forward to this being the first of many such collaborations.”
With Pinetics integrating Mindgrove’s SoCs into their module designs, the partnership creates a viable alternative to imported solutions in a sector where foreign modules have been the only option. For India’s growing electronics manufacturing base, this represents the first opportunity to source domestically designed silicon for security and vision applications.
“For a product design firm, the chip is the hardest dependency to localise,” said Navin Goyal, Co-Founder and CEO, Pinetics. “Working with Mindgrove changes that equation. We can now design modules around silicon that is developed in India, supported in India, and priced for the Indian market. For our customers in access control and security, this means faster iteration, stronger supply chain resilience, and a product story that resonates with where the industry is headed.” he added.
Mindgrove’s Secure IoT SoC, already taped out at 28nm and running at 700 MHz, is production-ready for smart connected devices including biometric systems, smart locks, meters, and PoS machines. Its Vision SoC, currently in development with support from India’s Design Linked Incentive scheme, is being built for high-performance edge computing and vision processing applications spanning CCTV cameras, dashcams, ADAS, and smart TVs. Together, the two SoCs position Mindgrove to serve Indian OEMs and ODMs across a broad range of application categories with a high-performing, cost-effective indigenous alternative.