Indore (Madhya Pradesh): When most people talk about technological revolutions, they picture giant labs, billion-dollar corporations, or global tech hubs. Few imagine that one of India’s most meaningful semiconductor breakthroughs would quietly emerge from a university classroom in Indore — shaped by the relentless drive of one man: Dr Vaibhav Neema.
His journey did not begin with grand resources or a specialised industrial lab. It began with a belief — that Indian students deserved to build technology, not just study it. At a time when semiconductors were considered too complex, too expensive and too distant for university-level innovation, Dr Neema set out to change the narrative.
He gathered a small group of motivated students, built the foundations of the Advanced VLSI Lab at IET-DAVV and began pushing them towards a bold goal: create a fully indigenous semiconductor chip from scratch.
The path was anything but easy. Designing a chip meant months of simulations, failed attempts, revising architectures and working late nights with limited opportunities. Yet the team persisted. Their determination resulted in the “Ma Ahilya DAC Chip,” India’s first indigenously designed DAC chip from a state university, fabricated at SCL Chandigarh under the Government of India’s C2S (Chip to Startup) programme.
This wasn’t just an academic achievement. The chip’s low-power applications promised impact in biomedical devices, smart electronics and future Indian tech innovations. Their work later reached the national spotlight when the chip was showcased at Semicon India 2025, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was presented with 17 indigenous chips — including DAVV’s design.
And Dr Neema didn’t stop there. His team went on to design another chip focused on improving data storage accuracy, crucial for satellite imaging, AI and biomedical analytics. The work earned praise from the state government, including Higher Education Minister Inder Singh Parmar, who called it “a new benchmark in technical education.”
Today, Dr Vaibhav Neema stands as a quiet force reshaping Indore’s and India’s technological future. His mission is simple but powerful: Make advanced semiconductor design accessible, affordable and achievable for every Indian engineering student. With upcoming chip designs already in progress and a generation of students now dreaming bigger because of him, Dr Neema is not just innovating — he is multiplying innovation.
