Cortus is a fabless semiconductor company specialized in the design and sale of RISC-V MCUs and AI inference chips for computer vision and image processing for the automotive, avionics, industrial and robotics markets. The company is one of the twelve founding members of the RISC-V Foundation and was the only non-American company among the original members at that time. It develops chips exclusively using its own processor IP, semiconductor technologies and design expertise, relying on a strong internal engineering team to deliver complete system-on-chip solutions.
A new era of intelligent, connected systems
As the digital transformation of industry is creating a new generation of intelligent systems, vehicles, factories, medical devices, energy infrastructures, and connected products increasingly require high-performance processing, artificial intelligence capabilities, security, and energy efficiency. This evolution is creating new challenges for the semiconductor industry. Innovation is no longer driven only by transistor scaling or manufacturing capacity. It increasingly depends on the ability to design efficient computing architectures, develop advanced semiconductor intellectual property and technologies, and transform research and engineering excellence into reliable industrial solutions.
As Europe strengthens its ambition for technological leadership and strategic autonomy, companies contributing to the semiconductor value chain play a critical role. This includes not only semiconductor manufacturing, but also processor architectures, IP development, system design, software ecosystems, and industrial deployment. As a new member of the INSIDE Industry Association, the company is committed to contributing its expertise in open architectures, embedded computing, and intelligent systems to a collaborative European technology landscape.
Two decades of open, embedded processor innovation
For more than two decades, its engineering teams have been developing processor technologies for embedded systems, with a strong focus on high performance, efficiency,
flexibility, and scalability. The company has been a long-standing contributor to the open computing ecosystem and was among the early organizations involved in the development of RISC-V. The emergence of RISC-V represented an important shift in processor innovation, demonstrating that open architectures could become a foundation for industrial computing and enabling collaboration across companies, research organizations, and technology communities.
For the company, open architecture is not only a technical concept. It represents an approach to innovation based on accessibility, collaboration, and the ability to adapt computing solutions to specific application requirements. Over the years, its technologies have been integrated into embedded applications where reliability, low power consumption, security, and efficient processing are essential. These characteristics are particularly important in markets such as automotive, industrial automation, IoT, and intelligent edge devices.
Bringing artificial intelligence to the edge
Artificial intelligence is transforming the way electronic systems operate. While large-scale AI models have attracted significant attention through cloud computing, a growing number of applications require intelligence directly at the edge.
Edge AI brings computation closer to where data is generated. This enables:
- Faster response times
- Improved privacy
- Reduced communication requirements
- Lower energy consumption
- Greater autonomy for embedded systems
Deploying artificial intelligence at the edge requires a fundamentally different approach from traditional computing. Unlike cloud infrastructures, embedded systems must deliver high computational performance while operating within strict constraints on power consumption, silicon area, cost, reliability, and real-time responsiveness. Meeting these requirements calls for heterogeneous computing architectures, where general-purpose processors, AI accelerators, security engines, memory subsystems, and application-specific hardware work together
seamlessly to deliver optimal performance and energy efficiency. Such architectures provide the flexibility needed to support a wide range of industrial applications while ensuring scalability, safety, and long-term reliability.
The company contributes to this evolution by combining expertise in processor architecture, AI inference acceleration, and semiconductor design capabilities. By leveraging its own processor IP and integrating specialized hardware accelerators into complete system-on-chip solutions, it enables energy-efficient intelligent computing platforms for demanding applications in automotive, avionics, industrial automation, robotics, and edge AI.
Enabling Europe’s software-defined vehicles
The automotive sector represents one of the most significant transformations in computing history. Modern vehicles are evolving into software-defined platforms, combining advanced electronics, connectivity, artificial intelligence, and increasingly complex control systems.
Future automotive architectures will require computing platforms capable of supporting:
- Real-time control
- Artificial intelligence inference
- Cybersecurity
- Functional safety
- Efficient power management
While several automotive manufacturers are investing billions of euros to develop proprietary semiconductor solutions for their own vehicle platforms, Europe also needs technology providers capable of supporting a much broader industrial ecosystem. Building competitive semiconductor capabilities should not depend solely on vertically integrated companies, but also on the availability of European-designed reusable processor architectures, semiconductor IP, scalable computing platforms, and engineering expertise that can be shared across multiple industries.
This is where the company contributes to the European innovation landscape. By developing its own processor architectures, semiconductor intellectual property, AI acceleration technologies, and complete system-on-chip design capabilities, it provides scalable computing platforms that can be adapted to a wide range of applications, from automotive and avionics to industrial automation, robotics, and intelligent edge devices. Such reusable technology platforms enable European companies to accelerate innovation, reduce development time, and focus their investment on differentiated products rather than reinventing core computing technologies. Strengthening these foundational capabilities is an important step towards reinforcing Europe’s competitiveness, technological resilience, and strategic autonomy in advanced semiconductors.
Collaboration across the innovation chain
The semiconductor industry is inherently collaborative. No single organization can address the complete technology stack alone. Progress depends on cooperation between semiconductor companies, research institutions, industrial users, software developers, and ecosystem organisations. This collaborative approach is one of the reasons the company joined the INSIDE Industry Association.
INSIDE brings together organizations working at the intersection of technology, research, and industrial innovation. The association provides a valuable platform for exchanging ideas, identifying new opportunities, and strengthening European cooperation in advanced technologies. By participating in the INSIDE ecosystem, it aims to contribute its experience in processor architectures, embedded computing, and semiconductor innovation while engaging with other European actors working on the future of intelligent systems.
Shaping the future of European computing
The future of computing will be shaped by the ability to combine openness, efficiency,security, and industrial relevance. Europe has significant strengths in research, engineering talent, and industrial expertise. Turning these strengths into global competitiveness requires strong collaboration across the entire innovation chain. From open processor architectures to AI enabled edge systems, the next generation of intelligent devices will require new approaches to semiconductor design and deployment.
The company is proud to contribute to this European innovation journey and looks forward to collaborating with INSIDE members to transform advanced technologies into practical industrial impact.