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Ultra-low-power AI (artificial intelligence) semiconductor fabless company iHW announced on the 19th that it has secured a Series A investment totaling 520 billion won.
iHW was established in June 2024 by executives and engineers from global semiconductor companies including Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Intel. It originated from a next-generation computing architecture research group and is now advancing its AI semiconductor business.
A total of 13 investors participated in this round. Existing investors, including lead investor Kolon Investment, Woori Venture Partners, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, DSC Investment, and HB Investment, all decided to participate in the follow-on investment.
New investors include Korea Development Bank (KDB), while LIG Defense & Aerospace joined as part of a consortium with IBK Capital. iHW's cumulative investment amount has now reached 640 billion won.
iHW's ultra-low-power AI semiconductor, 'Infertron (INFERTRON)', adopts the ACiM (Analog In-Memory Computing) approach, which directly applies neuromorphic computing technology to its computational architecture.
Conventional digital NPUs (Neural Processing Units) retrieve weights stored in memory and process them in separate arithmetic circuits. In contrast, Infertron performs computations directly at the location where weights are stored, reducing data movement and lowering both power consumption and latency.
Infertron is designed to operate with a single chip without external DRAM or separate flash memory. It can also be implemented using mature processes rather than cutting-edge nodes, and its low heat generation allows system configuration without additional heatsinks or cooling devices, which are cited as key features.
Last year, iHW secured multiple government projects related to AI semiconductors, obtaining over 10 million USD (approximately 14.1 billion won) in support funds. Recently, it has also been jointly developing intelligent semiconductor device technology with the Korea Electronics Technology Institute's (KETI) Intelligent Semiconductor Device Research Center for low-power humanoid SoC (System on Chip).
Kim Tae-hoon, CEO of iHW, stated, "The AI industry faces challenges such as infrastructure burdens and environmental issues caused by power consumption and cooling." He added, "There is a growing trend of delays in new data center construction or resistance from local residents, and expansion of edge AI dependent on battery capacity is also constrained."
He continued, "iHW has secured ultra-low-power neuromorphic technology that can significantly improve power consumption and energy efficiency across the spectrum from data centers and cloud to on-device AI. The investment funds will be used for prototype production of edge AI chips (Yangsan) and LLM (Large Language Model) chips, marketing efforts, and securing additional personnel."
Jo Hong-soo, Executive Vice President of Investment at Kolon Investment, said, "iHW has successfully demonstrated silicon-level operation verification of its core blocks and high-dimensional vision AI models, showing the potential to capture edge markets such as smart cities, industrial vision, and robot joints that digital NPUs could not solve due to heat and battery limitations."
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