Boat ties up with Hrdwyr, Tata Electronics for India's first locally packaged chip

Homegrown wearables maker Boat Thursday said that it will be the anchor customer for the first locally designed and packaged chip for its premium wireless audio products, as a means to differentiate in a flat market. The chip, made by Bengaluru-based Hrdwyr Ventures, has been designed in India and will be packaged by Tata Electronics at its upcoming OSAT units.

"This collaboration serves as a model for building the future of the electronics system in the country, encouraging more Indian companies and talent to engage in product innovation and design," said Ramamurthy Sivakumar, co-founder and CEO, Hrdwyr Ventures, said.

The first series of chips, designed by the company, is an integrated MCU (micro-controller unit) designed to provide power management and edge AI features, made in collaboration with Boat. It has been under development for over a year, with a memorandum of understanding signed with Boat last year.

It will initially be used in the wearable maker's premium lineup of truly wireless earbuds, -- which accounts for around 20% of Boat's total shipment of TWS earbuds -- but eventually will be sold in the open market for other customers.

Sivakumar, who was the former managing director of Intel's South Asia business, said there is an opportunity for India to build chips with AI capabilities for end-user devices other than smartphones and laptops, where mostly traditional chips are being used. Hrdwyr has identified around six potential customers for the chip.

"The idea is to bring up the Indian silicon ecosystem, which is not present, despite having the largest number of chip designers here. This is a tri-party initiative where we have worked very closely with Hrdwyr who designed the chip, and getting the packaging done in India with Tata Electronics," said Sameer Mehta, co-founder, Boat.

The first of the series will be sampled by Boat by the end of the year, with mass production expected to start next year. "We have spent three-four months doing due diligence before locking in Tata Electronics for the packaging. It was a leap of faith initially but I think they can deliver," Sivakumar said.

For Boat, the development could not have come at a better time. The wearables market has been in a decline since the last year, with the dominant TWS category seeing a 1.2% on-year decline in the June quarter, according to IDC.

The company is planning to premiumise its portfolio as a way to differentiate from its rivals and plans to integrate Google's Gemini AI in its products. "A key feature powered by the chip will be improved power management, leading to significantly extended battery life for TWS devices. This could increase battery efficiency by 20-30%. This is particularly valuable as we scale up the AI features in our products which require a lot of power," Mehta said.

It also helps reduce the bill-of-materials cost for the company, as its products will then use a single-chip solution, moving away from multi-chip design and reliance on Chinese suppliers.

"We see this chip as a crucial step to stand out in a highly competitive market by bringing innovation and differentiation at the chipset level. This will be aimed at offering features comparable to leading global brands like Apple and Samsung, but at a more accessible price point for the Indian market," Mehta said.