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Aheesa VIHAAN-I: A RISC-V Broadband SoC Moves From First-Pass Silicon to Packaging Partner

2026-09-14 4 min read EN
RISC-V Broadband-SoC ONT CPE FTTH Supply-Chain

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Published: 2026-09-14 · Category: RISC-V MCU · Reading time: ~4 min · Status: DRAFT

A second source for broadband silicon

Aheesa Digital Innovations, a Chennai-headquartered fabless company backed under India's Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Optilink Networks covering packaging for VIHAAN-I, its RISC-V broadband networking SoC. Optilink — a Mumbai OEM founded in 2005 that designs and manufactures FTTH, IP-TV and IP networking hardware — had already supported the programme through testing, validation and engineering.

Under the MoU, Optilink takes on end-to-end product development from prototyping through packaging, and the two companies work toward qualifying and commercialising ONT/CPE products based on the VIHAAN-I chipset. Aheesa states it is now moving toward commercial deployment in early 2027.

For procurement teams, the significance is supply-chain rather than performance. Home-gateway silicon is a category with very few viable suppliers and very long product lifetimes. A credible additional RISC-V-based option — designed in one country, packaged and integrated by an established CPE manufacturer in the same country — is exactly the kind of second source that open-ISA architectures are supposed to make possible.

What was actually achieved on silicon

The company's stated milestones, in order:

First-pass silicon success is a genuine result and worth stating plainly: a respin costs months and a mask set. But note what it does not tell you. It confirms the design behaves as specified electrically. It says nothing about yield at volume, thermal behaviour under sustained load, or signal integrity across production variance — all of which are the usual failure modes between a working prototype and a shippable product.

What is not disclosed

This is where the announcement is thin, and it is worth being blunt about it. The published material contains no core count, no clock frequency, no process node, no foundry, no power envelope, no memory configuration, and no RISC-V profile or extension string. We do not know whether VIHAAN-I targets an RV32 or RV64 base, whether it implements RVA22 or RVA23, or whether it carries vector or crypto extensions. We do not know which interfaces it integrates — PON MAC, Ethernet PHY, switching capacity or USB are all unspecified in the material available.

Any of those numbers you see quoted elsewhere for this part should be treated as unverified until Aheesa publishes a datasheet.

The software question is the real risk

For a broadband SoC, silicon is the easier half. An ONT or CPE device ships with a firmware stack — typically a vendor SDK layered over Linux or an RTOS — plus TR-069/TR-369 management, QoS, VLAN handling, and operator-specific customisations that vary per ISP. The integration risk is concentrated entirely in that layer.

Aheesa's approach, per its founder and CEO Sridharan Mani, has been to involve OEMs from the design stage so the chip is validated against specific customer applications before fabrication. That is a sound strategy for de-risking the first tape-out, and it plausibly explains the first-pass success. It also creates a dependency: if an OEM changes its software stack or power-management profile after tape-out, Aheesa may need an engineering change or a new silicon revision.

Optilink's role matters here. Two decades of FTTH hardware and firmware experience is precisely the capability that turns a validated die into a carrier-qualifiable product, and packaging-and-integration partnerships are the conventional route by which fabless startups bridge that gap.

Ecosystem context

The announcement sits inside India's Semicon 2.0 programme, notified with a total outlay of ₹1,27,500 crore across six pillars: chip design, machines and materials, new fabs, ATMP/OSAT, R&D, and talent development. The India Electronics and Semiconductor Association welcomed the notification on 1 September 2026, citing policy continuity as the key enabler for ten-to-fifteen-year investment horizons.

That is the frame worth watching. Broadband CPE is a long-lifecycle, high-volume, cost-sensitive market — a poor fit for a startup chasing premium margins, and a reasonable fit for a design house building a durable second source on an open ISA with no per-core licensing cost.

Engineering takeaway

Do not design VIHAAN-I into anything yet — there is no datasheet and no published availability. Do watch it. The signal to act on is the combination of first-pass silicon plus a credible manufacturing and integration partner plus a stated early-2027 commercial window. If a datasheet appears with a disclosed profile and interface set, this becomes a legitimate option for teams looking to diversify broadband silicon supply away from a single incumbent architecture.

Sources

Verification notes

Open RISC-V — RISC-V Silicon & Development Board Store — open-riscv.com