COMPANY
We design digital chips and FPGA systems, simulate and verify them with rigorous automated testing, and build them to solve real problems in South African infrastructure.
Our first design, Raven-01, is a low power sensor chip that detects sewer blockages days before they overflow. It has been fully designed and verified in simulation, and has passed implementation checks for FPGA hardware. Hardware testing is next.1
We combine physics, mathematics and chip engineering.
Every design starts from the physics of the problem, not from a parts catalogue.
An integrated device manufacturer designs its own chips and, over time, makes them. We are starting with design.
/01NOW
Digital chips and FPGA systems for South African industry.
/02NEXT
Proven designs on FPGA hardware and in real field pilots.
/03PLANNED
Our designs manufactured through shared wafer runs.
/04GOAL
Our own fabrication capability, starting with mature, specialised chip processes that suit South Africa's needs and resources.
We believe South Africa's chip industry starts with designers, not with a billion rand factory. We're starting there.
We never start from a blank page. Before a product exists, we study the problem until we understand what causes it and why it keeps happening.
While we build, we test our product against everything we say about it. If a claim is not true yet, we do not make it. We would rather tell you what a product cannot do than sell you what it might do one day.
The people using what we build know things we do not. We listen to what they need, and it shapes what we build next.
We never put profit ahead of the people we serve.
Founder and CEO
Esethu Tshintsholo founded Naple and leads its chip design and technical direction. Esethu started companies from the age of 13, ran Byndage, which earned revenue before it failed, and has built data infrastructure software including Faven, Kestrel and Lume. Esethu's greatest skill is learning a subject down to its fundamentals.
Why chips: South Africa mainly exports minerals and raw materials, then buys them back as finished goods at a higher price. Every technology runs on chips, so the demand lasts. Esethu believes South Africa's minerals, ports and trade routes can make it a place where chips are made, and that a chip industry can grow the country's manufacturing economy.
We are early, and we will tell you exactly how early. Write to us and we will share where Raven-01 stands, what we have learned and what we need next.
Raven-01 has not been tested on hardware or in the field, and we have no customers yet. We are a one person company. Our next milestones exist to remove exactly these risks.
We design with open source chip tools (Yosys, Verilator, cocotb, OpenLane) and check every design against an independent reference model, so our first design cost almost nothing in tools or hardware. Shared wafer runs at mature processes are our route to first silicon.
Run Raven-01 on a real FPGA board with real sensors.
One manhole with a partner, then the Water Research Commission's WADER demonstration programme.
A design on a shared wafer run, such as Tiny Tapeout or ChipFoundry.
Investor brief (PDF)Coming soon
We build technology that only wins when the people using it win.
Simple Life, Better Life.
Tell us what is failing and where. An engineer will reply within two working days.
Opens an email to hello@napletech.online.