Indian Electronics and Semiconductor manufacturing industry

[proud_indian]

Indian Mobile Components Manufacturing and Assembly Market to Reach $62.8 Billion by 2023

December 21, 2018 | Globe Newswire

The Indian mobile components manufacturing and assembly market was worth $20.7 Billion in 2017 and is projected to reach a value of $62.8 Billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 19.9% during 2018-2023.

Indian Mobile Components Manufacturing and Assembly Market Trends:

India is currently the second-largest manufacturer for mobile phones in the world, on account of rapid internet penetration, mounting disposable incomes and a large base of tech-savvy consumers. The large and growing demand for mobile phones has led to the rapid development of the domestic manufacturing and assembly units in India.

While the launch of feature phones during the last decade of the 20th century established strong penetration, introduction of smartphones stimulated the market further. Driven by the growth in Internet services, smartphones found high penetration among the urban/Internet savvy population, thereby driving the demand for mobile phone components.

India's demographic profile has experienced a characteristic evolution, which is highly favorable to the mobile phone adoption. Factors such as a large young population, strong working-age population, rising number of working women, and the growth of the Indian middle class have evolved to represent the most influential segments of the population generating new social, technological, and economic trends.

India has a large pool of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled labor in the major manufacturing states. The easy availability and low cost of labor has encouraged investors to enter the Indian smartphone manufacturing industry.

Continuous technological advancements are pushing mobile phone manufacturers to shorten the product lifecycle and launch new products frequently, for both first-time and replacement consumers. This is fueling the demand for basic mobile phone components such as PCB (Printed Circuit Board), connectors, plastics, metals and acoustics.

Due to the favorable business initiatives by the government, India is expected to witness swift inflow of foreign investments in the next few years. For instance, Samsung has recently inaugurated world's largest mobile phone factory in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, giving huge boost to the mobile phone manufacturing industry in the country. Apart from Samsung, several other Chinese phone manufacturers are expected to expand their manufacturing capacity or set up a new plant in the country during the forecast period.

Although most of the mobile phone manufacturers in India are involved in assembly applications, the growing number of favorable governments schemes are prompting the manufacturers to invest in local value addition and indigenous research.

http://smt.iconnect007.com/index.ph...to-reach-628-billion-by-2023/114495/?skin=smt

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Must read:
India’s a Land of Cities, Not Village

 

[ezsasa]

Must read:
India’s a Land of Cities, Not Village

It’s an opinion, need not be taken as the only truth.

If this article’s advice is followed, we will end up totally ignoring villages like in China and Mexico, where urban areas are given top priority and rural areas are totally ignored even in terms of basic infra.

I’d say our way is the right way for now.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

It’s an opinion, need not be taken as the only truth.

If this article’s advice is followed, we will end up totally ignoring villages like in China and Mexico, where urban areas are given top priority and rural areas are totally ignored even in terms of basic infra.

I’d say our way is the right way for now.

It'll intended actually for RED trolls on sister forum who keep boasting about being far more urbanized (60%).
India and China don't even have same definition of urban areas.
And one thing opinion states is rational for sure, attention on these towns tagged as rural areas could transform them into new major cities. This time with planned expansion.

 

[ezsasa]

It'll intended actually for RED trolls on sister forum who keep boasting about being far more urbanized (60%).
India and China don't even have same definition of urban areas.
And one thing opinion states is rational for sure, attention on these towns tagged as rural areas could transform them into new major cities. This time with planned expansion.

I am just waiting for next year’s reports.. in all probability we will be ahead on many parameters.

1) road connectivity
2) internet connectivity
3) electricity connectivity
4) cooking gas connectivity(ongoing)

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Indian AI Startup Funding 2018: Total Global Investment In India Touched USD$ 529.52 Million

 

[Haldiram]

Indian processor : Shakti. (Based on open source hardware/ RISC)


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Indx TechStyle]

IESA sets up accelerator for fabless semiconductor startups
The accelerator would look at promote 20 startups in the next three years which will eventually reach to around 50 in five years.

India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA) has set up an accelerator for fabless semiconductor startups as it looks to design chips for products like Energy meters, LED lighting, Smartcards, Rural broadband, IoT solutions etc within the country.

The accelerator would look at promote 20 startups in the next three years which will eventually reach to around 50 in five years. The Karnataka government has invested Rs 21.5 crore in the accelerator which would eventually go upto Rs 56 crores in five years. The Semiconductor Fabless Accelerator Lab would have the required infrastructure to build intellectual property in the area of semiconductors.

While India has lost out to the world in semiconductor manufacturing, the country has a ecosystem of semiconductor design firms, largely global companies such as Intel, Cadence and Texas Instruments who have set up their software development base. The accelerator looks to tap at this ecosystem to build a local base of semiconductor startups who can design chips for India-specific requirements.

"Our aim is to incubate 3-4 companies in the new facility by March 2019. SFAL fills a critical gap in our ESDM ecosystem that will prepare us as a country to capitalize on the mega trends unleashed by intelligent electronics," Rajesh Ram Mishra - President, IESA said.

The IESA report at Vision Summit 2018 established that the Indian semiconductor component market is estimated to see a huge market growth of $32.35 billion by 2025. Growing at a CAGR of 10.1% from 2018 to 2025.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

India is getting its own giant battery gigafactory for electric vehicles

 

[Flame Thrower]

India is getting its own giant battery gigafactory for electric vehicles

Mujhe sodium batteries chahiye

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Mujhe sodium batteries chahiye

Unka kya karna hai chacha?..........

 

[Flame Thrower]

Unka kya karna hai chacha?..........

Well sodium is abundant and has near energy density and less costly (well second after lithium).

There is enough sodium that we can stabilise our grids too.

Research is still going on....give at least 5yrs to decade and we can see sodium batteries

 

[Advaidhya Tiwari]

Well sodium is abundant and has near energy density and less costly (well second after lithium).

There is enough sodium that we can stabilise our grids too.

Research is still going on....give at least 5yrs to decade and we can see sodium batteries

It was already tested in 1980s that Sodium battery will not work. Sodium atom was considered to be too big to move around properly and hence would not behave similarly to lithium. Otherwise people would have been using only sodium battery everywhere. Sodium is plenty in the oceans

 

[Flame Thrower]

It was already tested in 1980s that Sodium battery will not work. Sodium atom was considered to be too big to move around properly and hence would not behave similarly to lithium. Otherwise people would have been using only sodium battery everywhere. Sodium is plenty in the oceans

Here is the short video...
Go through it.

Couple of months ago, I had followed about Sodium battery development. During that time I had come to know about the research paper submitted by Indians on solving some of the problems related to battery development. It was Greek and Latin, hard to understand anything. I am looking for that source and will provide as soon as I get it.

 

[Why so serious?]

A 32-inch Smart Android LED TV launched in India, priced at just Rs 4,999
By Staff | Published:Thu, January 31, 2019 11:38am



This TV has been launched by a Delhi-based company called Samy Informatics.

India’s cheapest 32-inch Android Smart TV has been launched by a Delhi-based company called Samy Informatics. On Wednesday, the Samy SM32-K5500 HD LED TV was launched at Rs 4,999, which excludes shipping costs and GST.

The 32-inch smart TV runs Android OS, and is compatible with all smart apps. The LED TV features a 32-inch HD display with 1366 786 pixels, 16:9 aspect ratio, and dynamic ratio of 1000000:1. Not just that, it also includes two 10 watts speakers, SRS Dolby Digital and a 5 Band Equalizer for better sound quality. The company says all the parts of the TV are ‘Made in India‘ which has given the employment to more than 200 people.


We are offering a wide variety at Value for Money proposition. There is a huge potential in the market and a large base of consumer untouched through the country. Other than urban-semi urban, the rural market is expanding rapidly. Keeping in mind about the ‘Make in India’ & ‘Start-up India’, our objective is to provide each and every class, lower income family could enjoy the smart TV with a price range of Rs.4,999 on a premium side comparison to high budget TV,” said Avinash Mehta, Director, Samy Informatics Pvt. Ltd.


Other specifications of the Samy 32-inchAndroid TV include 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. This comes with pre-installed apps such as Facebook and YouTube, and users will be able to install more such apps from Google Play as it runs Android 4.4 operating system. In terms of connectivity options, this TV include two HDMI and two USB ports, an AV out port and a video input port.


While the Samy SM32-K5500 HD LED TV costs Rs 4,999, the catch here is that the price will be different when you order it for your home. First the TV can only be bought from Samy’s app. Second, when you’ll order the TV, it will additionally ask you for shipping according to your location. All over India shipping is listed for Rs 1,800 + 18 percent GST. So the final cost of your Samy TV would be around Rs 8,000.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

©Economic Times
Here's why Indian companies are betting big on AI
It's now a frenzied race. Companies are diverting more and more resources towards AI capabilities.

India ranked third among G20 countries in 2016, measured by the number of AI-focused startups, which have increased since 2011 at a compound annual growth rate of 86%, higher than the global average.
In the past two years, Swiggy, the Naspers, DST Global and Bessemer Ventures-funded restaurant aggregator, has been on a tear. The number of interactions on its platform since October 2017 has gone from 2 billion (across consumers, riders and restaurants) to 40 billion in January 2019. In that time, Swiggy has gone from a business working with 12,000 restaurants to over 55,000; from seven cities to 70; from delivery staff of 15,000 to 120,000. The Bengaluru-based venture has become far more valuable, too — from $700 million in February 2018 to $3.3 billion by the end of the year. This dizzying growth has meant that Swiggy, a firm founded as recently as 2014, has to look beyond human intervention to keep pace.
Swiggy is leaning on technology, specifically artificial intelligence (AI), to help its systems keep pace with this rapid growth. “AI is critical for us to sustain our growth,” says Dale Vaz, who heads engineering and data science at Swiggy. Over the past 12 to 18 months, Swiggy has been expanding this team, putting more resources behind it. The firm has also intensified its focus on building a strong data repository, thanks to the explosive growth of interactions, to catalyse the adoption of AI. A lot of the necessary back-end work in tagging and classification is increasingly done by code that improves itself over time.
The company can today use machine learning to train its systems to distinguish between vegetarian and meat dishes from images, and also to vastly expand the languages, colloquialisms, words and strings customers could use to obtain accurate results. For instance, the words ‘chicken’, ‘murgi’, ‘murghi’, ‘koli’, ‘kolzhi’ will all be recognised by the app as a craving for poultry. Swiggy offers users different app interfaces, depending on their individual preferences. The new AI-enabled features will add more meat to its offerings, so to speak. In February 2019, the firm acqui-hired (when you buy a company for the skills of its founders or the team) Kint.io, a developer of image recognition solutions, for an undisclosed amount. “We continue to scout for deals to strengthen our presence in this field,” says Vaz.
For a company like Swiggy, winning a competitive tech advantage with AI is a high-stakes necessity. It is in a heated duel for market share with arch-rival Zomato, but sees Uber Eats, Food Panda and even Dunzo as looming rivals.
In India, Swiggy is hardly the first techstar to bite the AI apple. Previously, Google, Walmart Labs, Flipkart, Paytm, Oyo and several other global and homegrown players have all invested in and acquired companies to boost their presence in AI. For much of the past few years, startups and large companies have been running relatively small experiments with AI. Now the momentum in the space is accelerating, as evidenced by a flurry of deals as well as by in-house budgets at unicorns being diverted in this direction.
Like all technology hype cycles, there’s a lot of posturing. AI votaries are pushing CEOs to invest in it, but the challenge is to make sure these investments generate good returns and not get lost in bureaucracy, especially when integrating an acquihired company. “AI is past this hype circle,” says Sasha Mirchandani, founder of Kae Capital, an early-stage investor in tech startups. “Now larger contracts are being offered and old economy giants are committing themselves to this emerging field.

AI refers to the ability of a computer or system to interpret external data and take decisions based on this information. As a field of study, it has been around since the mid-1950s, but technological advancements over the past decade have seen it leap rapidly from the lab to mainstream applications. Several factors have pushed the growth of AI globally, including availability of massive data sets, the leaps in processing capability with the emergence of GPUs (graphics processing unit), improvement in cloud technology and the growing sophistication of machine learning and self-improving algorithms.

AI has, of course, been in use among consumers for a few years. For example, on mobile phones, digital personal assistants such as Siri, Google Now and Cortana all try to learn from the usage and behaviour of the phone’s owners. Games such as Far Cry and Call of Duty lean on these technologies. In the world of business, retailers such as Target and Amazon have used AI to predict consumer behaviour, as have banks, media ventures and music streaming services.

AI has become something of a magic wand to wave at all tech problems, even as there’s widespread debate around its utility and optimal applications. Startups focusing on niche areas in AI are receiving investor backing, ventures with strong AI capabilities are now beginning to win deals and customers beyond early pilots and, most notably, specialists in the field, especially data scientists, are in high demand. “At least 25-30% of the proposals we now get involve a significant element of AI,” says Girish Shivani, executive director at YourNest, an early-stage venture capital firm with interest in so-called deep-tech startups. Kris Laxmikanth, CEO of Bengaluru-based HR firm Headhunters, says that the market for talent with AI-linked skills is becoming overheated. Salary jumps of 100-150%are becoming the norm to lure away an established data scientist. There are also instances of Indian AI startups relocating to Silicon Valley in the US for want of relevant talent here.

“AI is a hot skill today. I will even call it super hot. It is hotter than what SAP was in its heyday. In Silicon Valley, an AI engineer can get between $135,000 and $160,000. This is the highest paying skill today. In India, a fresh engineer with AI skills starts at Rs 8 lakh per annum in top software services companies such as TCS and Wipro. After one year, they can command 50-80% increase if they have the exposure to right projects like chatbot building. At global tech companies such as Google, these salaries are higher,” says Laxmikanth.
Structural Support

There’s evidence of broader support for AI from big tech and, as announced in the Union budget, from the government. Tech behemoth Google acquired Halli Labs, then a four-month-old startup, in July 2017. However, beyond Halli’s expertise in machine learning and natural language processing (the ability of a computer to understand language as spoken by humans), Google is making deeper inroads into the Indian market.

“... for entrepreneurs, we are working on an accelerator programme, based in India, focused primarily on AI/ML technologies. Our global accelerator programme has already supported over 30 Indian startups of which six are focused on applied AI/ML innovation,” Google India noted in a blog post in March 2018. The interim finance minister, Piyush Goyal, announced the establishment of a national AI programme, in the budget. A national centre for AI is envisaged and a portal is expected to be established, too.

According to an estimate in a study by tech giant Accenture, AI has the potential to add $957 billion, or 15% of current gross value added, to India’s economy by 2035.

India ranked third among G20 countries in 2016, measured by the number of AI-focused startups, which have increased since 2011 at a compound annual growth rate of 86%, higher than the global average.

However, some limitations in the Indian market could yet slow the momentum. For one, the quality of data in India continues to be an issue. The diversity of demographics, languages and use cases limit the ability of consumer applications to learn on the go. Second, despite some changes, India’s startups focused on AI continue to be under-invested by risk capital providers, compared with their rivals in China and the US.

But, on the ground, companies that have laid their foundations are starting to see some traction. In June 2016, when ET Magazine spoke to the founders of SigTuple, a provider of AI-driven healthcare diagnostic tech, it was conducting early pilots. Today, its products are much more established and the firm has expanded its business overseas. It raised $28 million from investors, including marquee VC Accel Partners, and according to bankers, will soon announce a fresh raise of $50 million in the next few months.

CEO Rohit Kumar Pandey told ET Magazine in November 2018 that the firm was expanding its manufacturing line and the reach of A100, a new product that digitises different body fluids such as blood, urine and semen. It is also pushing for more global certification for Manthana, its AI diagnostics platform. “We want to build a global AI-driven healthcare venture out of India,” he said.

Niki.ai’s prospects seem similarly bright, although in a diametrically different approach, it’s focusing on India. The venture, founded in 2015, has over three million users of its chatbot service and counts HUL and HDFC Bank among its customers. It has raised funding from Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer Ventures, Ratan Tata and German enterprise software giant SAP. “We are focusing on building our products for Bharat,” says Nitin Babel, cofounder.

To do this, Niki is focused on building its capabilities in vernacular languages and wants the next wave of India’s internet users, who are native to mobile phones, to be able to comfortably use its chatbot.

Babel says the firm is profitable on a perorder basis and expects to see gross merchandise volume go from Rs 200 crore in 2018 to Rs 1,800 crore in 2021. While the firm’s business has grown ten-fold in the past 12 months, Babel believes the best is yet to come.

Then & Now: How Some AI Startups Have Faredniki.aiFOCUS: Chatbot that helps users discover services and products

FOUNDED IN: March 2015

BACK IN 2016: Helped with bill payments, cab bookings, recharge, home services and food ordering

NOW: Early pilots have led to customers such as HUL and HDFC Bank

SigTupleFOCUS: AI-based medical technology solutions provider

FOUNDED IN: July 2015

BACK IN 2016: Shonit, an automated solution for complete blood count test, completed a comprehensive clinical validation study at a reputed diagnostic laboratory in Bengaluru.

NOW: Business has boomed, with the company’s technology being used overseas too. It is in the market to raise at least $50 million in fresh funding.

arya.ai
FOCUS: Building developer tools to help enterprises build their own complex AI-based systems

FOUNDED IN: October 2013

BACK IN 2016: Working with large companies in the technology and financial services sectors to build these products

NOW: Customer traction is growing with the likes of ICICI Lombard using its tools to hasten insurance claim processing

Snapshopr/ ArtifaciaFOCUS: AI-based marketing solutions

FOUNDED IN: June 2015

BACK IN 2016: Was focused on imagerecognition technology

NOW: Has pivoted, rebranded and focused its technology to help companies monetise their user-generated content

 

[kunal1123]

swarajyamag.com
‘India Must Have Its Own LTE Modem For National Security’: Zoho Develops Indigenous 4G LTE Modem

Swarajya Staff
3-4 minutes
by - Feb 13 2019, 5:03 pm,

Sridhar Vembu the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Zoho (a SAAS firm) has claimed that the company has secretly developed a 4G LTE modem.

This modem was a result of an effort by 50 engineers who worked eight years on the project. The final product was taped-out in Taiwan a couple of weeks ago.

“We have developed a 4G LTE Modem in stealth mode. 50 engineers worked for 8 years, and it taped out just last week in Taiwan. 5G is on its way. India must have its own LTE chip for national security” @CIC_Chennai says Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu Listen @Doval_Ajit12 @PMOIndia !

— Gopal Srinivasan (@GopalSri) February 9, 2019
Vembu stressed on the importance of this project by asserting that India must have its own LTE chip in the interest of national security. He was speaking at a “Business Visionaries Series” function in Chennai last week (9 February).

He added that, “US CEOs buy private jets. My jet is developing India’s first LTE Chip for our national security. Far more satisfying than any Jet ever!”

Speaking about his own journey as a technocrat he credited India for all his successes and claimed that the nation has the smartest people. He called on giving Indians a vision and then wait for the magic to unfold.

 

[sorcerer]

Welcome AJIT, a ‘Made in India’ Microprocessor
Researchers at IIT Bombay develop the country’s first indigenously designed and fabricated microprocessor.

India’s electronics market is in its biggest boom ever. Fuelled by the demand for electronic devices, it is expected to reach a whopping $400 billion by 2020. Most of the electronic devices we use are imported; only a quarter of the devices are produced in the country. According to statistics, electronic goods in India account for more than 10% of total imports, second only to petroleum products! One electronic equipment that is almost always imported is the microprocessor—the ‘brain’ of an electronic device.

A microprocessor is an integrated circuit (IC) that contains a few millions of transistors (semiconductor-based electronic devices) fused on a semiconductor chip. It is just a few millimetres in dimension and is used in almost every electronic device—from the microwave and washing machine in homes to advanced supercomputers of a space station. However, developing and manufacturing a microprocessor is not easy—it is expensive, risky and needs much skill. Hence, only a handful of companies across the world have been able to manufacture and sell microprocessors successfully.

In an attempt to make a mark in the highly competitive segment of microprocessor manufacturing, engineers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) have developed a new microprocessor called AJIT—the first ever microprocessor to be conceptualised, designed, developed and manufactured in India. This innovation could not only reduce the country’s imports but also make India self-reliant in electronics.

AJIT marks the first time in the country’s history where the industry, academia and the government have come together. Prof. Madhav Desai and his team of about nine researchers from IIT Bombay have designed and developed the processor entirely at the institute. The project was funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and IIT Bombay. Powai Labs, a Mumbai-based company, has also invested in the venture and will own, market and support the product. “I am thankful to Dr Debashish Dutta of MeitY for championing this project and to Reapan Tikoo of Powai Labs for supporting the project financially and as industry partner,” says Prof Desai acknowledging the contributions of the partner institutions.

“We have been working on this processor design for more than two years now. The design has been tested on programmable semiconductor chips before we began our effort towards fabricating the processor,” says Prof. Desai.

AJIT - Packed with features

Akin to most microprocessors available today, AJIT comes with an arithmetic logic unit that can do basic arithmetic and logical operations like addition, subtraction and comparison, and a memory management unit that stores and retrieves data from memory. There is also a floating point unit designed to handle calculations with non-integer numbers efficiently. For those who would like to program the microprocessor, there is a hardware debugger unit to help them monitor and control the processor.

AJIT’s features can be compared to many of the microprocessors of its size available in today’s market. Unlike the ones used in the desktops like the Intel’s Xeon, AJIT is a medium-sized processor. It can be used inside a set-top box, as a control panel for automation systems, in a traffic light controller or even robotic systems. What’s more, the researchers expect that AJIT will cost as less as ₹100 when it is produced en-masse! AJIT can run one instruction per clock cycle and can operate at clock speeds between 70-120MHz, comparable to its competitors in the market.

The researchers have made the software tools associated with AJIT freely available to everyone. The processor is also available as a ‘softcore’, where vendors can buy a license to use the design of the microprocessor and fabricate it to use it in their system. The researchers also offer to customise the processor for specific applications.

“The design of the processor is modular, and at some extra cost, vendors can get a processor design with a feature set suitable for the system they are designing”, says Prof. Desai.

The ‘made-in-India’ advantage

Prof Desai and his team of students---C. Arun, M. Sharath, Neha Karanjkar, Piyush Soni, Titto Anbadan, Ashfaque Ahmed, Aswin Jith, Ch. Kalyani, Nanditha Rao---used a tool set called AHIR-V2, that can convert an algorithm to hardware and which was developed completely at IIT Bombay to design the microprocessor circuit. Prof Desai mentioned that many fruitful discussions with his colleagues in IIT Bombay, Prof V. R. Sule, Prof M. Shojaei-Baghini and Prof M. Chandorkar helped the project and he acknowledged the contribution of H. Jattana, Pooja Dhanker and Shubham of Semiconductor Labs, Chandigarh towards fabrication of the processor.

In the first stage, AJIT has been manufactured in the government-owned Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL), Chandigarh, with a technology that offers the smallest building block of the size 180 nanometers. The researchers also plan to commercially manufacture the processor using more advanced techniques that provide the smallest building block of size 65 nm or 45 nm, which is the current state of the art.

“Fabricating this using 180nm technology is the first step. Although this may not be the state of the art technology, it is enough for most of the targeted applications. Using advanced technology for large manufacturing quantities—tens of lakhs—would bring the cost per piece down”, remarks Prof. Desai.

A processor made in India offers more than just the cost benefits. It provides the country with autonomy and self-reliance in the electronics sector and reduces our dependence on technology imported from other parts of the world. It also ensures a secure system with no opportunity for any backdoor entry, thus preventing digital sabotage by other countries or malicious organisations. So far, though we have had Indian teams design complete processors in India, no Indian company owns a commercially available microprocessor product. AJIT hopes to change that soon.

A home-grown processor is also likely to reduce the burden of imports. Manufacturers of electronics devices could benefit from the ready availability and competitive price of an Indian device with an added advantage of having the design and support team nearby. If an equipment manufacturer needs any modification or customisation, the design and support team would be accessible.

“Geographical proximity could easily make it possible to get something done in say two weeks time, instead of three months required otherwise”, says Prof. Desai.

The challenges and the roadmap

The feat of building the indigenous microprocessor was not without challenges. Prof. Desai had only a small group very talented and passionate but inexperienced graduate students, and they worked on a shoestring budget to ensure a sound design before the processor was fabricated. “The challenge was to structure and partition the design in a way suitable to be implemented in this setup. To enable early testing, we created a computer-based model of the processor that could simulate the functionality of the processor in detail. This made testing the processor possible, much before it was fabricated,” recalls Prof. Desai.

It’s not done yet; there are tougher challenges ahead for the team to make the processor commercially viable to make this a grand success story. “For AJIT, we need to get more people to use it. Primary tests have indicated that the specifications of the processor match many in the competition and the new processor would also be cost-competitive. If the business community at large would own this processor, build systems around it so that users, as well as supporters, see value in this and can make money from the effort, then this effort can remain sustainable”, says Prof. Desai.

The researchers hope that since AJIT compares well with other imported processors, it could see many early adopters. They also plan to introduce AJIT to the academia to expand its reach and provide graduating students a hands-on experience. “We could push the usage of this new microprocessor by introducing it as a part of the syllabus in engineering colleges. A well-designed single-board computer system could be made available at a low cost for students and other enthusiasts to experiment with”, suggests Prof. Desai.


On the government’s part, MeitY has extended its funding to enhance the processor and deploy it in government-initiated projects. SAMEER (Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering & Research), an independent lab under MeitY, Government if India is planning to use AJIT in the receivers being developed for NAVIC or IRNNS (The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System), an indigenous navigation system for the Indian subcontinent.

“We are hoping that people use AJIT and plan and build equipment using it. We are ready and prepared to support them. We have a seed, and we need people to grow it”, signs off Prof. Desai.



https://researchmatters.in/news/welcome-ajit-‘made-india’-microprocessor

 

[Advaidhya Tiwari]

Welcome AJIT, a ‘Made in India’ Microprocessor
Researchers at IIT Bombay develop the country’s first indigenously designed and fabricated microprocessor.

India’s electronics market is in its biggest boom ever. Fuelled by the demand for electronic devices, it is expected to reach a whopping $400 billion by 2020. Most of the electronic devices we use are imported; only a quarter of the devices are produced in the country. According to statistics, electronic goods in India account for more than 10% of total imports, second only to petroleum products! One electronic equipment that is almost always imported is the microprocessor—the ‘brain’ of an electronic device.

A microprocessor is an integrated circuit (IC) that contains a few millions of transistors (semiconductor-based electronic devices) fused on a semiconductor chip. It is just a few millimetres in dimension and is used in almost every electronic device—from the microwave and washing machine in homes to advanced supercomputers of a space station. However, developing and manufacturing a microprocessor is not easy—it is expensive, risky and needs much skill. Hence, only a handful of companies across the world have been able to manufacture and sell microprocessors successfully.

In an attempt to make a mark in the highly competitive segment of microprocessor manufacturing, engineers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) have developed a new microprocessor called AJIT—the first ever microprocessor to be conceptualised, designed, developed and manufactured in India. This innovation could not only reduce the country’s imports but also make India self-reliant in electronics.

AJIT marks the first time in the country’s history where the industry, academia and the government have come together. Prof. Madhav Desai and his team of about nine researchers from IIT Bombay have designed and developed the processor entirely at the institute. The project was funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and IIT Bombay. Powai Labs, a Mumbai-based company, has also invested in the venture and will own, market and support the product. “I am thankful to Dr Debashish Dutta of MeitY for championing this project and to Reapan Tikoo of Powai Labs for supporting the project financially and as industry partner,” says Prof Desai acknowledging the contributions of the partner institutions.

“We have been working on this processor design for more than two years now. The design has been tested on programmable semiconductor chips before we began our effort towards fabricating the processor,” says Prof. Desai.

AJIT - Packed with features

Akin to most microprocessors available today, AJIT comes with an arithmetic logic unit that can do basic arithmetic and logical operations like addition, subtraction and comparison, and a memory management unit that stores and retrieves data from memory. There is also a floating point unit designed to handle calculations with non-integer numbers efficiently. For those who would like to program the microprocessor, there is a hardware debugger unit to help them monitor and control the processor.

AJIT’s features can be compared to many of the microprocessors of its size available in today’s market. Unlike the ones used in the desktops like the Intel’s Xeon, AJIT is a medium-sized processor. It can be used inside a set-top box, as a control panel for automation systems, in a traffic light controller or even robotic systems. What’s more, the researchers expect that AJIT will cost as less as ₹100 when it is produced en-masse! AJIT can run one instruction per clock cycle and can operate at clock speeds between 70-120MHz, comparable to its competitors in the market.

The researchers have made the software tools associated with AJIT freely available to everyone. The processor is also available as a ‘softcore’, where vendors can buy a license to use the design of the microprocessor and fabricate it to use it in their system. The researchers also offer to customise the processor for specific applications.

“The design of the processor is modular, and at some extra cost, vendors can get a processor design with a feature set suitable for the system they are designing”, says Prof. Desai.

The ‘made-in-India’ advantage

Prof Desai and his team of students---C. Arun, M. Sharath, Neha Karanjkar, Piyush Soni, Titto Anbadan, Ashfaque Ahmed, Aswin Jith, Ch. Kalyani, Nanditha Rao---used a tool set called AHIR-V2, that can convert an algorithm to hardware and which was developed completely at IIT Bombay to design the microprocessor circuit. Prof Desai mentioned that many fruitful discussions with his colleagues in IIT Bombay, Prof V. R. Sule, Prof M. Shojaei-Baghini and Prof M. Chandorkar helped the project and he acknowledged the contribution of H. Jattana, Pooja Dhanker and Shubham of Semiconductor Labs, Chandigarh towards fabrication of the processor.

In the first stage, AJIT has been manufactured in the government-owned Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL), Chandigarh, with a technology that offers the smallest building block of the size 180 nanometers. The researchers also plan to commercially manufacture the processor using more advanced techniques that provide the smallest building block of size 65 nm or 45 nm, which is the current state of the art.

“Fabricating this using 180nm technology is the first step. Although this may not be the state of the art technology, it is enough for most of the targeted applications. Using advanced technology for large manufacturing quantities—tens of lakhs—would bring the cost per piece down”, remarks Prof. Desai.

A processor made in India offers more than just the cost benefits. It provides the country with autonomy and self-reliance in the electronics sector and reduces our dependence on technology imported from other parts of the world. It also ensures a secure system with no opportunity for any backdoor entry, thus preventing digital sabotage by other countries or malicious organisations. So far, though we have had Indian teams design complete processors in India, no Indian company owns a commercially available microprocessor product. AJIT hopes to change that soon.

A home-grown processor is also likely to reduce the burden of imports. Manufacturers of electronics devices could benefit from the ready availability and competitive price of an Indian device with an added advantage of having the design and support team nearby. If an equipment manufacturer needs any modification or customisation, the design and support team would be accessible.

“Geographical proximity could easily make it possible to get something done in say two weeks time, instead of three months required otherwise”, says Prof. Desai.

The challenges and the roadmap

The feat of building the indigenous microprocessor was not without challenges. Prof. Desai had only a small group very talented and passionate but inexperienced graduate students, and they worked on a shoestring budget to ensure a sound design before the processor was fabricated. “The challenge was to structure and partition the design in a way suitable to be implemented in this setup. To enable early testing, we created a computer-based model of the processor that could simulate the functionality of the processor in detail. This made testing the processor possible, much before it was fabricated,” recalls Prof. Desai.

It’s not done yet; there are tougher challenges ahead for the team to make the processor commercially viable to make this a grand success story. “For AJIT, we need to get more people to use it. Primary tests have indicated that the specifications of the processor match many in the competition and the new processor would also be cost-competitive. If the business community at large would own this processor, build systems around it so that users, as well as supporters, see value in this and can make money from the effort, then this effort can remain sustainable”, says Prof. Desai.

The researchers hope that since AJIT compares well with other imported processors, it could see many early adopters. They also plan to introduce AJIT to the academia to expand its reach and provide graduating students a hands-on experience. “We could push the usage of this new microprocessor by introducing it as a part of the syllabus in engineering colleges. A well-designed single-board computer system could be made available at a low cost for students and other enthusiasts to experiment with”, suggests Prof. Desai.


On the government’s part, MeitY has extended its funding to enhance the processor and deploy it in government-initiated projects. SAMEER (Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering & Research), an independent lab under MeitY, Government if India is planning to use AJIT in the receivers being developed for NAVIC or IRNNS (The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System), an indigenous navigation system for the Indian subcontinent.

“We are hoping that people use AJIT and plan and build equipment using it. We are ready and prepared to support them. We have a seed, and we need people to grow it”, signs off Prof. Desai.



https://researchmatters.in/news/welcome-ajit-‘made-india’-microprocessor

This is pretty ordinary processor. It is even inferior to the 180nm processor recently developed by Madras IIT. This processor as mentioned, is only suitable for set top box , IRNSS receivers, TV, AC, washing machine etc and not for big calculation in computers

 

[proud_indian]

This is pretty ordinary processor. It is even inferior to the 180nm processor recently developed by Madras IIT. This processor as mentioned, is only suitable for set top box , IRNSS receivers, TV, AC, washing machine etc and not for big calculation in computers

yeah, They did mention that. What's your point?