IIT-Madras, ISRO lead booting of SHAKTI semiconductor chip

CHENNAI: IIT-Madras and ISRO have led the way in developing and successfully booting an Atmanirbhar aerospace quality SHAKTI-based Semiconductor chip.

According to IIT-M, the SHAKTI microprocessor project is led by professors V Kamakoti and Prathap Subrahmanyam, Centre for Digital Intelligence and Secure Hardware Architecture (PSCDISHA) in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT-M.

"The SHAKTI class of systems are based on RISC-V, an open-source Instruction Set Architecture (ISA), for designing custom processors. 'SHAKTI' is backed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, under-its 'Digital India RISC-V' initiative (DIRV). It aims to promote indigenous development of microprocessor based products that offer best-in-class security and visibility for users adopting RISC-V technology," a statement issued by IIT-M read.

Highlighting the importance of this new microprocessor, V Kamakoti, director of IIT-M said, "After RIMO in 2018 and MOUSHIK in 2020, this is the third SHAKTI chip we have fabricated at SCL Chandigarh and successfully booted at IIT Madras. That the chip design, chip fabrication, chip packaging, motherboard design and fabrication, assembly, software and boot - all happened inside India, is a validation that the complete semiconductor ecosystem and expertise exists within our country."

Appreciating this joint effort V Narayanan, chairman, ISRO, said, "We at ISRO are happy that IRIS Controller conceived by IISU-based on the SHAKTI processor of IIT Madras could be successfully developed end-to-end with Indian resources. This marks truly a milestone in ‘Make in India’ efforts in semiconductor design and fabrication. I congratulate all the teams involved, especially the IISU team led by Padmakumar ES and the IIT Madras team led by Kamakoti. I am sure this high-performance controller will contribute significantly to future embedded controllers for space mission-related applications.”