IIT Madras and ISRO Develop and Successfully Boot Aerospace-Grade Semiconductor Chip.

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have successfully developed and booted an indigenous aerospace-grade SHAKTI-based semiconductor chip. This milestone aims to bolster India's self-reliance in microprocessor technology, particularly in high-security and mission-critical applications using the open-source RISC-V architecture.

The SHAKTI microprocessor project, led by V. Kamakoti at the Prathap Subrahmanyam Centre for Digital Intelligence and Secure Hardware Architecture at IIT Madras, is supported by the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under the ‘Digital India RISC-V’ initiative.

Developed from the SHAKTI processor baseline, the ‘IRIS’ (Indigenous RISC-V Controller for Space Applications) chip is designed for applications ranging from the Internet of Things (IoT) to compute systems for strategic needs. It plays a crucial role in ISRO’s ongoing efforts to indigenize semiconductor technology for command and control systems and other critical space applications, aligning with the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ vision.

The ISRO Inertial Systems Unit (IISU) in Thiruvananthapuram collaborated with IIT Madras in defining specifications and designing the 64-bit RISC-V-based controller. The semiconductor chip was developed to meet the functional and computing needs of existing ISRO sensors and systems. To enhance reliability, fault-tolerant internal memories were interfaced with the SHAKTI core.

The entire development process, from chip design to fabrication, packaging, and software integration, was carried out in India. The semiconductor was conceived by IISU, designed and implemented by IIT Madras, manufactured by the Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL) in Chandigarh, packaged by Tata Advanced Systems in Karnataka, and assembled with software developed at IIT Madras.

Highlighting the significance of the achievement, V. Kamakoti, Director of IIT Madras, stated, “This is the third SHAKTI chip we have fabricated at SCL Chandigarh and successfully booted at IIT Madras. The fact that every stage—from design to fabrication, packaging, motherboard assembly, and software development—was completed within India reaffirms the strength of our domestic semiconductor ecosystem.”

ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan hailed the success as a landmark in India’s ‘Make in India’ semiconductor ambitions. “The IRIS Controller conceived by IISU, based on IIT Madras' SHAKTI processor, has been successfully developed end-to-end with Indian resources. We plan to flight-test a product using this controller soon to validate its performance.”

HBL