The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune is working on India’s first indigenous family of microprocessors. C-DAC’s roadmap for processors is aimed at helping the country become self-reliant in microprocessors development using indigenous design.
C-DAC has made significant progress in the development of the VEGA series of dual-core and quad-core microprocessors, and two designs are ready for fabrication, said Director General Magesh Ethirajan. The first one is a 32-bit embedded processor which could be used in smart energy meters, smart water and gas meters, Internet of Things devices, multimedia processing and AR/VR applications.
“It is a low-power, low-footprint and low-cost chip, which could be deployed for wider applications,” he said. The technology has been developed and distributed to institutes for further development. They had set an ambitious target of meeting at least 10% of the country’s microprocessor requirement, Ethirajan said.
The country depends on imports for its microprocessors and C-DAC wanted to reduce this dependence. Apart from C-DAC’s Vega series of processors, IIT Madras has developed the Shakti series of microprocessors and has also made significant progress in this initiative of making the country self-reliant. C-DAC has also developed another microprocessor Teja, which is a high-end 64-bit chip 180-nanometer technology.
