Chennai: Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) have successfully booted up ‘MOUSHIK,’ an indigenously-made Microprocessor for IoT devices.
MOUSHIK is a processor cum ‘system on chip’ that could cater to the rapidly-growing IoT devices, an integral part of Smart Cities of a Digital India.
‘MOUSHIK’ was conceptualised, designed and developed at the Pratap Subrahmanyam Centre for Digital Intelligence and Secure Hardware Architecture (PS-CDISHA) of the RISE Group, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT-Madras.
A IIT-M release said the impact of the completely-indigenous development process was the showcasing of an Indian ecosystem for designing, developing and fabricating end-to-end systems within the country, leading to self-sufficiency.
The project is funded by Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Prof Kamakoti Veezhinathan, Reconfigurable Intelligent Systems Engineering (RISE) Group, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT-M said “there are three steps involved in the making of a microprocessor, namely Design, Fabrication and Post-Silicon Boot-up. All three processes for MOUSHIK were undertaken in India, demonstrating an ‘Atma Nirbhar’ ecosystem in Digital Design Productization.”
“The Design of the Microprocessor, Motherboard Printed Circuit Board Design, Assembly and Post-Silicon Boot-up were done at IIT Madras”, he said.
The foundry-specific backend design and fabrication was undertaken at Semi-Conductor Laboratory of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Chandigarh and the motherboard was manufactured at Bengaluru.
Shakthi MOUSHIK SOC will constitute the heart of an indigenously-developed motherboard called ‘Ardonyx 1.0.’
MOUSHIK is an Indigenous RISC-V Microprocessor and is the third chip of the SHAKTI family, all of which were conceptualised and developed by this Centre and were first time ‘silicon successes.’