Processor IP Cores

Licensed, pre-verified processor designs. Almost no chip company designs its own CPU from scratch, which makes this one of the chain’s quietest chokepoints.

Tier C: Not a Founder’s Game Yet High criticality

Real Indian capability exists here, which is rare in this chain, but commercialising it is a national-programme effort rather than a founder’s.

What It Does

The pre-built processor brain most chip makers license instead of designing

Ready-made CPU designs that get dropped into a chip.
A licence can be withheld or changed, unlike a physical part.
India's Shakti and Vega projects are early homegrown alternatives.

India Position

Import dependency: Not established
Made in India today: Pilot scale
MSME entry capital: Not an MSME entry
Time to qualify: Over 30 months

Not established means we hold no sourced import figure for this input yet, not that India imports none of it. Read Made in India today for the domestic picture.

Shakti at IIT Madras and Vega at C-DAC are working indigenous RISC-V cores that have been fabricated. Neither is yet a commercial licensing business at scale.

What Breaks, and Who Could Fix It

What breaks

An open instruction set is not an open core. Commercially competitive RISC-V implementations are still licensed products from a small number of vendors, so the dependency moves rather than disappearing.

Who could fix it

Turning a working academic core into a licensable commercial product means sustained investment in verification, software toolchains and support, the parts that are not research.

Best and worst case

Best case if this breaks

RISC-V is a genuine structural change. An open instruction set removes the licence dependency at the architecture level, and India has committed real public money to it.

Worst case if this breaks

A processor licence is a legal instrument in a way a drum of chemicals is not. It can be withheld, renegotiated or conditioned on end use, and there is no stockpiling your way around it.

Best case to fix it

India’s Shakti and Vega programmes have already taped out indigenous RISC-V cores. The design capability exists in the country, which is not true of most of this chain.

Worst case to fix it

Core IP is a scale business. Customers buy the ecosystem around a core, not the core, and building that ecosystem takes a decade of consistent funding.

Representative Suppliers

Listing a firm documents the market as we understand it. It is not an endorsement, a recommendation, or evidence of any commercial relationship.

Supplier	Origin	Scale	Confidence
Arm The dominant licensor of CPU cores across mobile, embedded and increasingly servers.	United Kingdom	Mega	Verified
SiFive The best-known commercial RISC-V core vendor.	United States	Mid	Verified
Imagination Technologies GPU IP, and one of the few alternatives to Arm on the graphics side.	United Kingdom	Mid	Reported
Synopsys ARC embedded processor cores alongside its EDA business.	United States	Mega	Reported
Cadence Design Systems Tensilica configurable DSP and processor cores.	United States	Mega	Reported

Price Context

US Producer Price Index: integrated circuits latest: 29.9 ▲ +1.1% YoY

Sources

Arm: processor IP licensing as of 2026-08
SiFive: RISC-V core IP as of 2026-08

Last reviewed 2026-08-28.

How to read this page

Reading Key

Every entry carries the same five figures, so two inputs anywhere in the chain can be compared directly. What each one is, and what it is not:

Import dependency: The share of Indian demand for this input that is met by imports today. A percentage is published only where we can state the basis for it, and the build rejects a figure that has none. “Not established” means no sourced figure exists yet, not that the figure is zero; for the domestic picture, read “Made in India today” instead.
Made in India today: How much of this input is actually produced in India: none, pilot scale, partial, or established. This is the field to read when import dependency is not established.
MSME entry capital: What it would plausibly cost an Indian MSME to enter this input at the smallest viable scale, in crore rupees. Plant and equipment only; it excludes working capital and the qualification cycle.
Time to qualify: How long from a working sample to a qualified first shipment, once the line exists. Qualification, not construction, is what usually decides whether an entry succeeds.
India readiness tier: Our verdict on whether an Indian founder can realistically enter this input, derived from the four figures above and stated as one of three tiers.

The three tiers

Tier A: Buildable Now: Under roughly Rs 5 crore of entry capital and 12 to 24 months to a qualified first shipment. A founder can start here.
Tier B: Partnership or Distribution: There is real money here, but not in manufacturing the thing. The opening is in stocking, distribution, purity uplift or a licensed partnership.
Tier C: Not Yet: Requires a joint venture, a technology licence, or a multinational’s balance sheet. Worth understanding, not worth starting.

Made in India today

None: No Indian production we can identify. Demand is met entirely from abroad.
Pilot scale: Made in India at laboratory, pilot-line or single-customer scale only.
Partial: Real Indian production exists, but it covers part of the range or part of the demand.
Established: Indian production is routine and qualified, at commercial volume.

Confidence

Confidence describes how well evidenced our listing is. It is not a rating of the supplier or of its products.

Verified: Checked against a primary source: the firm’s own filing, product documentation or announcement.
Reported: Consistently reported by trade press or industry analysts, but we have not seen the primary document ourselves.
Likely: A credible supplier for this input given their product range, though we have not confirmed that they actually supply it.
Directional: Included to show the shape of the market. Read it as an observation, not as a claim about this firm.

Scale

Scale is a bucket, not a revenue figure. We publish a band we can hold for years rather than a number that is stale in a quarter.

Mega: A global top-tier firm that effectively sets the price and the standard for this input.
Large: A major international supplier, usually with plants or sales in several regions.
Mid: An established specialist, often strong in one region or one product family.
Small: A niche or regional supplier. Frequently the realistic first partner for a new Indian entrant.