Bengaluru-based fabless semiconductor company Level Five Cartronics is exploring partnerships with Indian outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing (OSAT) providers as it works to move its automotive-chip portfolio through a domestic manufacturing chain.
The company has held discussions with CG Semi and Kaynes Semicon in Sanand, Suchi Semicon in Surat, the government-operated Semiconductor Laboratory in Mohali, and Tata group entities. The discussions are still at a prospective stage, with no final OSAT award or fabrication agreement disclosed.
Level Five plans to use Indian OSAT facilities during the initial phase of its manufacturing roadmap. In the longer term, the company intends to shift wafer fabrication to the Tata Electronics and Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC) facility being developed in Dholera, once the facility is ready to accept external designs.
The company develops chips for automotive applications including advanced driver-assistance systems, infotainment, instrument clusters and electronic control units. Its portfolio also includes analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits designed for timing, power management, signal conditioning and electromagnetic-interference control. Level Five’s broader target markets include high-performance computing and AI servers, industrial systems, medical equipment, telecom infrastructure and consumer electronics.
As a fabless semiconductor company, Level Five focuses on chip design while relying on external foundries for wafer fabrication and OSAT providers for packaging, assembly and testing. Its efforts therefore connect India’s semiconductor design capabilities with manufacturing and packaging capacity emerging in the country.
CG Semi’s Sanand facility is a joint venture between CG Power, Renesas Electronics and Thailand-based Stars Microelectronics. The facility is designed to provide semiconductor assembly and testing services, with planned installed capacity of up to 4.7 billion units annually over five years. Kaynes Semicon has also started production at its Sanand OSAT facility, while Tata Electronics and other approved semiconductor projects are developing additional packaging capacity.
Level Five already has automotive-grade products in its portfolio. Its LX504A spread-spectrum clock generator is listed with an operating range of minus 40 degrees Celsius to 125 degrees Celsius and AEC-Q100 automotive qualification. The company has also developed proprietary active electromagnetic-interference management technology aimed at reducing interference without conventional phase-locked-loop architectures.
For now, Level Five’s focus remains on domestic packaging rather than a completely localised chip supply chain. Wafer fabrication, assembly, testing, qualification and volume production remain separate stages. Any future transition to the Tata-PSMC fabrication facility will depend on its commissioning, process availability and customer-qualification programme.
The discussions nevertheless represent an effort by an Indian chip-design company to place its commercial automotive products within the country’s emerging semiconductor packaging and testing network.
