(GIST OF SCIENCE REPORTER) SHAKTI SEMICONDUCTOR CHIP

(MARCH-2025)

SHAKTI SEMICONDUCTOR CHIP

Recently, the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and the Indian Space Research Organisation have developed an indigenous aerospace-quality Shakti-based semiconductor chip.

Shakti Semiconductor chip

The Shakti Semiconductor chip is an indigenous RISC-V controller for space applications that is developed from the Shakti processor baseline.
It can be applied to a variety of fields, including computer systems and the Internet of Things for strategic purposes.
This is the third SHAKTI chip to be successfully manufactured in India, following RIMO in 2018 and MOUSHIK in 2020.
In keeping with its push for independence in space technology, the development is a component of the endeavour to indigenise semiconductors utilised by ISRO for its applications, command and control systems, and other vital activities.

Shakti Microprocessor

RISC-V (reduced instruction set computing), an open-source instruction set architecture for creating bespoke processors, serves as the foundation for the Shakti class of systems.
Through its Digital India RISC-V project (DIRV), the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology supports Shakti.
It seeks to encourage domestic production of microprocessor-based goods that provide customers implementing RISC-V technology with the highest level of security and visibility.

Features and Significance

Made in India: The chip design, fabrication, packaging, motherboard design and fabrication, assembly software, and boot are entirely done in India, boosting the Make in India initiative of the government.
It is aimed at low-power and low-compute applications and is capable of running basic RTOSs like FreeRTOS and Zephyr.
Fault tolerant: The fault-tolerant internal memory helps in ensuring higher reliability, especially in harsh space conditions.
RISC-V-based controller: It is a free and open architecture driven by open collaboration, thus enabling freedom of design across many industries and applications.