iHW, a South Korean fabless startup specializing in ultra-low-power artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors, announced on the 19th that it has secured ₩52 billion (approximately $37.1 million) in Series A funding. The round brings the company’s cumulative fundraising to ₩64 billion (approximately $45.7 million).
A total of 13 institutions participated in the round. Kolon Investment served as the lead investor, while all existing investors—including Woori Venture Partners, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, DSC Investment, and HB Investment—committed to follow-on investments. Korea Development Bank joined as a new investor, and LIG Defense & Aerospace participated through a consortium with IBK Capital.
iHW was founded in June 2024 by executives and engineers from global semiconductor companies including Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Intel. CEO Kim Tae-hoon is a memory semiconductor expert who previously worked at Samsung Electronics, Micron Technology, and SK Hynix. The company originated from a next-generation computing architecture research group and has since expanded into the AI semiconductor business.
The ultra-low-power AI chip under development, named INFERTRON, employs ACiM (analog in-memory computing), which applies neuromorphic computing technology directly to the computational architecture. Unlike conventional digital NPUs (neural processing units) that retrieve weights stored in memory and process them in separate computational circuits, INFERTRON performs computations directly at the location where weights are stored. This approach reduces data movement, simultaneously lowering power consumption and latency.
INFERTRON is designed to operate as a standalone single chip without external DRAM or separate flash memory. It can be implemented on mature process nodes rather than requiring cutting-edge fabrication, and its low heat generation allows system construction without dedicated heat sinks or cooling devices.
Last year, iHW secured multiple AI semiconductor projects from South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, obtaining over $10 million (approximately ₩14 billion) in government funding. The company is currently collaborating with the Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI) Intelligent Semiconductor Device Research Center on low-power SoC (system-on-chip) technology for humanoid applications. It has also successfully completed silicon validation of core blocks and demonstrated real-chip operation of high-dimensional vision AI models.
“The AI industry faces significant challenges in power consumption and cooling-related infrastructure burdens and environmental issues,” said Kim Tae-hoon, CEO of iHW. “New data center construction is increasingly delayed or facing community opposition, and edge AI expansion is constrained by dependence on battery capacity.”
He added, “iHW has secured ultra-low-power neuromorphic technology that can dramatically improve power consumption and performance-per-watt across the spectrum from data centers and cloud to on-device AI. This funding will be used for edge AI chip mass production, LLM (large language model) chip prototyping, marketing, and additional hiring.”
Cho Hong-soo, managing director at Kolon Investment’s investment division, commented: “With iHW’s successful silicon validation of core blocks and demonstration of high-dimensional vision AI models, the company has shown potential to capture edge markets—including smart cities, industrial vision, and robot joints—where digital NPUs have struggled due to thermal and battery limitations.”
The company plans to aggressively target the edge AI market, including smart cities, industrial vision, and robot joints, using the new funding. The capital will be deployed toward edge AI semiconductor mass production, LLM semiconductor prototyping, marketing, and workforce expansion to accelerate technology development and commercialization.