SmartSoC Solutions Private Limited, an Indian semiconductor design and product engineering company, today announced a strategic partnership with Cortus S.A.S., a French semiconductor company renowned for its cutting-edge Intellectual Property (IP) solutions in secure identification technologies. This partnership aims to drive innovation and accelerate the development and manufacturing of SIM cards, Smart cards, banking cards, and e- passport chip solutions in India, establishing a robust domestic capability in secure and mission-critical chip design.
Founded in India, SmartSoC Solutions has built a reputation as one of the fastest-growing engineering service companies, offering very large scale integration (VLSI), embedded software, Internet of Things (IoT), and AI-driven solutions to global customers. With over 1,350 engineers operating globally, SmartSoC Solutions has emerged as a key contributor to India’s growing semiconductor ecosystem.
Cortus, headquartered in Montpellier, France, is a leading chip solution provider that leverages its broad IP portfolio, custom chip design capabilities, and advanced technologies to specialize in secure elements and semiconductor solutions. With over 17 billion chips deployed worldwide, Cortus technology powers a wide range of applications including SIM cards, smart cards, banking cards, cryptocurrency, pay-TV, e-passports, as well as automotive, consumer, and industrial sectors.
Shipping approximately 1.2 billion chips annually, Cortus is now sharpening its focus on automotive, avionics, and artificial intelligence (AI) chipsets. It delivers complete system-on- chip (SoC) solutions designed to meet the stringent safety, security, and performance standards of modern vehicles. Cortus’ secure, energy-efficient, and scalable designs are trusted globally for identity protection, financial transaction security, and automotive-grade applications.
To support the growing demand for advanced, high-performance semiconductor solutions worldwide, Cortus has established strategic alliances across Europe, China, and India. These partnerships strengthen local design, development, and support capabilities, fostering closer collaboration with regional markets. Cortus is expanding this network to build a resilient, diversified ecosystem that accelerates innovation and delivers next-generation RISC-V solutions tailored for mission-critical and safety-sensitive applications.
“SmartSoC Solutions is excited to collaborate with Cortus in bringing advanced secure chip technologies to India,” said Bharath Desareddy, CEO of SmartSoC Solutions. “This partnership marks a significant milestone in our mission to enable secure and self-reliant silicon manufacturing in India. With Cortus’ proven IP and expertise in secure identification and our deep design and engineering capabilities, we are confident of delivering world-class chipsets tailored for the Indian and global markets.”
“We see India as a key market for secure identity and financial transaction chips,” said Michael Chapman, CEO of Cortus. “Our collaboration with SmartSoC reflects Cortus’ commitment to building global partnerships for local innovation. We are excited to work with a like-minded partner to drive sustainable and secure chip production in the region.”
With the government’s growing emphasis on Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India), Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes, and recent policy pushes for secure digital identity and financial infrastructure, the timing is ripe for local innovation and manufacturing.
SmartSoC Solutions is a global provider of semiconductor design and embedded engineering services, specializing in turnkey project execution, custom ASIC development, and foundry services. With deep domain expertise and a solutions-driven approach, SmartSoC enables clients to accelerate growth and scale efficiently. Our collaborative, end-to-end approach enables leading semiconductor and system companies to streamline development cycles and bring differentiated silicon solutions to market with precision. Visit us at https://www.smartsocs.com
About Cortus:
Cortus is a global fabless semiconductor company delivering high-performance RISC-V automotive chips up to 4 GHz capable of 4 instructions/cycle, with integrated AI inference optimized for computer vision. Cortus designs and supplies advanced RISC-V chips tailored for automotive, avionics, and AI- driven systems, combining high performance, energy efficiency, and functional safety to meet the most demanding industry requirements. Visit us at https://www.cortus.com
Cortus, an innovative fabless semiconductor manufacturing group today announces a key achievement of its high-performance Out-of-Order RISC-V 64-bit processor implemented as part of the eProcessor HPC project. The prototype chip using the OoO RISC-V core developed by Cortus and whose synthesis and physical layout were done by Cortus, was fabricated by GlobalFoundries in their 22FDX process.
The first silicon of this RISC-V chip successfully boots and runs Linux.
Based on our rich and solid experience in chip design and, above all, our strong expertise in processor architecture, Cortus is creating the Minerva high-performance RISC-V platform for the next generations of 64-bit RISC-V processors which can run up to 4GHz for the automotive industry. This platform is designed for flexibility, customization and has a scalable and configurable cluster architecture, making it suitable for diverse automotive compute-intensive applications from low-end to mid and high-end as well as applications in Avionics.
The Cortus Minerva platform features lock-step cores, memory error correction, partitioning and includes a hardware security module (Evita HSM compliant) and meets the requirements for safety and security for automotive certification.
OEM manufacturers and automobile manufacturing companies require these kinds of MPUs for implementing the Software Define Vehicle (SDV) offering flexibility for adding new features in the future. This enables OEMs and Tier-1 to simplify migration from existing MPUs with maximal software reuse to minimize development cost.
From this platform, Cortus can rapidly develop a range of MCUs and MPUs for different market segments from Body and Chassis Control to Gateway, Domain Controller and ADAS/AD Level-3 and Level-4.
Other Cortus 32/64-bit RISC-V processors have been specifically developed for customers for use in Satellite, Civil Nuclear, Consumer and high-security and high safety system and have been successfully deployed for years.
Cortus RISC-V chips offer designers of embedded systems and applications a balance between performance, power, security, total system cost and energy efficiency. These are not just RISC-V chips, but complete solutions from chip to product, with a fully featured Software Development Kit (SDK), Development Boards and Reference Design providing comprehensive support through to the final product development stage.
Cortus Ulyss1, engineering samples available, is a 32-bit RISC-V automotive MCU running at 120MHz, covering a wide range of applications such as body electronics control, chassis control, infotainment connection module, HAVC, windows, door, sunroof management, powertrain, motor control and more. It targets ISO26262 ASIL-B and IEC 61508, AEC Q100/1 compliance. Other members of the family will target ISO26262 ASIL-D compliance and will have an Evita full HSM.
For embedded processing of consumer products, engineering samples of the Lotus1 consumer RISC-V MCU are available. This is a 32-bit RISC-V MCU with advanced motor control.
The RISC-V ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) offers the automotive industry a standard ISA which can be applied across the entire range of MCUs and MPUs, thus assuring a long-lived stable and consistent software tooling, including open source compilers and operating systems helping reduce software costs.
You are welcome to visit the Cortus stand at Embedded World 2025 from 11 to 13 March, in Nuremberg, Hall 5-126. We would be happy to show you a demo that might be of interest to you.
About Cortus S.A.S.
Cortus is a fabless semiconductor manufacturing group headquartered in Mauguio (near Montpellier, France). Cortus provides RISC-V chips from a simple MCU to a high-end SoC using its own broad IP portfolio which includes processors 32/64 bits (Cortus ISA and RISC-V ISA), digital, analog, RF, mixed-signal, security, safety, interconnect and peripherals, for different markets such as Avionics, Automotive and Consumer including a highly efficient scalable AI platform for high-performance image inference for computer vision. We are experts in processor architecture, ASIC/SoC design, advanced systems, embedded processing and AI inference to create value beyond products. Over 16 billion devices have been manufactured containing Cortus processors and IP. Cortus is one of the dozen Platinum Founding Members of the RISC-V Foundation.
Press contact:
Cortus France
Contact: Mr. Duc Nguyen
DirectorTel: +33 4.30.96.70.00 – Email: info@cortus.com
Cortus is very proud to present a demonstration of Cortus ULYSS1, a RISC-V MCU designed by Cortus and addressing in the automotive market the body control segment.
You are welcome to visit the Cortus stand at Embedded World 2025 from 11 to 13 March, in Nuremberg, Hall 5-126. We would be happy to show you live this demonstration
About Cortus S.A.S.
Cortus is a fabless semiconductor manufacturing group headquartered in Mauguio (near Montpellier, France). Cortus provides RISC-V chips from a simple MCU to a high-end SoC using its own broad IP portfolio which includes processors 32/64 bits (Cortus ISA and RISC-V ISA), digital, analog, RF, mixed-signal, security, safety, interconnect and peripherals, for different markets such as Avionics, Automotive and Consumer including a highly efficient scalable AI platform for high-performance image inference for computer vision. We are experts in processor architecture, ASIC/SoC design, advanced systems, embedded processing and AI inference to create value beyond products. Over 16 billion devices have been manufactured containing Cortus processors and IP. Cortus is one of the dozen Platinum Founding Members of the RISC-V Foundation.
Cortus is proud to play an active role in the eProcessor project by designing the RISC-V Out of Order (OoO) core.
Great news that the test chip now runs full Linux.
Congratulation to the global eProcessor teams : It’s another big step forward.
Specifically dedicated to the automotive market, the new Cortus ULYSS1 is a RISC-V MCU that addresses the needs of Body control applications and much more!
Founded in 2005, Cortus is a French fabless semiconductor manufacturing group headquartered in Mauguio (near Montpellier, France) with subsidiaries in Italy, Greece andSpain.
Cortus designs IC devices from simple MCUs to very high-end SoCs drawing on its broad IP portfolio which includes processors 32/64-bit (Cortus ISA and RISC-V ISA), digital, analog, mixed-signal, RF and security IPs. Cortus own IP portfolio addresses applications such as Automotive, Consumer, IoT/NB-IoT, Edge Computing and Industrial control. Over 15 billion devices have been manufactured using the Cortus technologies.
Cortus is a Platinum Founding Member of the RISC-V Foundation and strategic member of RISC-V International.
Press contact:
Cortus S.A.S. Company Contact: Olivier Demoly Director of Marketing and Business DevelopmentTel: +33 4.30.96.70.00
