Govt sets timeline to launch first indigenous commercial chipsets by 2024

The government has set a timeline to commercially roll out the first indigenous chipsets by 2023-24 under the Digital India RISC -V programme launched on Wednesday, Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Wednesday.

The Minister of State for Electronics and IT said that the Digital India RISC-V (DIR-V) programme aims to create future generations of microprocessors that will serve the need of India's strategic focus on mobility, computing and digitisation.

"One big milestone that I am very focused on is to have the first set of commercial silicon of Shakti and Vega processors available by December 2023 or early 2024.

"We want at least a few companies to adopt their product designs to DIR-V products Shakti and Vega before 2023-24 and when the silicon is ready, they start manufacturing and incorporating chips in the products," Chandrasekhar told reporters.

IIT Madras and the Centre for Development of Advance Computing (CDAC) have developed two microprocessors named Shakti (32 bit) and Vega (64 bit) respectively using Open Source Architecture under the aegis of the Microprocessor Development Programme of the Ministry of Electronics and IT.

The government has appointed IIT Madras director Professor V Kamakoti as chief architect and CDAC Trivandrum Scientist Krishnakumar Rao as programme manager of the DIR-V programme.

The DIR-V programme will consolidate and leverage the ongoing efforts in the country with an integrated multi-institutional and multi-location team, finalise the formal architecture and target performance of chipsets, support original equipment makers and design wins in India and abroad. The DIR-V initiative is part of the government's Rs 76,000 crore effort to build a semiconductor ecosystem in the country.

"We also believe over the next one-and-a-half-years, the partnership between the Shakri and Vega teams and overall DIR-V programme with platform companies like HP, VVDN and Apple and large number of companies in the electronic ecosystem will help create design wins around DIR-V family of products Shakti and Vega," Chandrasekhar said.