For ISRO, IIT Madras Designs Indigenous Shakti Semiconductor Chip

Nitin Konde, Varun Bhardwaj

27 Feb 2025 — 3 min read

IIT Madras Develops Indigenous Shakti Semiconductor Chip for ISRO

The open-source RISC-V Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) serves as the foundation for this chip, which is a component of the Shakti family of microprocessors and represents a significant advancement in lowering India's reliance on imported semiconductor technology. IIT Madras built and implemented the IRIS chip, which was first envisaged by ISRO's Inertial Systems Unit (IISU) in Thiruvananthapuram.

In India, every step of the development process—chip design, production, packaging, motherboard assembly, and software booting—was completed. This accomplishment demonstrates India's capacity to establish a comprehensive semiconductor ecosystem. The goal of IIT Madras' Shakti project, headed by Prof. V. Kamakoti, is to develop adaptable processors for a range of uses.

What is IRIS Chip and its Usage?

Fault-tolerant internal memories and specially designed modules like CORDIC and WATCHDOG Timers are features of the IRIS chip, which is designed for space applications. In addition to other essential tasks for space missions, it is made to satisfy the computational demands of ISRO's command and control systems.

Prof. V. Kamakoti, the director of IIT Madras, stressed the value of employing domestic microprocessors for strategic initiatives and national security. "Any computing system's brain is the CPU. Instead of doing what you don't want it to, it should do what you want it to," he said. Greater flexibility and cost-effectiveness are made possible by the Shakti processor's open-source nature, which also lowers the cost of replacing parts and permits the use of outdated interfaces.

ISRO Appreciating the Discovery

The microprocessor design and stress tests have been deemed satisfactory by ISRO experts, who will now move forward with their own testing. In addition to enhancing India's space capabilities, this partnership between IIT Madras and Isro shows off the nation's developing semiconductor technological skills and opens the door for more domestic space exploration advancements in the future. The creation of water-free concrete that might be utilised to build buildings on the Moon and Mars was previously disclosed by IIT Madras.

About ISRO

The Government of India's space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), has its main office in Bangalore. Its goal is to "harness space technology for national development while pursuing space science research and planetary exploration." The Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR), which was founded in 1962 by Jawaharlal Nehru, the country's first independent prime minister, and his close scientist and assistant Vikram Sarabhai, was replaced by ISRO in 1969.

Thus, the creation of ISRO formalised India's space endeavours. The Department of Space oversees it and answers to the Indian Prime Minister. Aryabhata, the first satellite created by ISRO for India, was launched by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1975. It bears the name of Aryabhata, the mathematician.

The SLV-3, an Indian-made launch vehicle, launched Rohini into orbit in 1980, making it the first satellite to do so. Later, ISRO created two further rockets: the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) to place satellites in geostationary orbits and the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) to launch satellites into polar orbits.

Numerous Earth observation and telecommunication satellites have been launched using these rockets. There has been the deployment of satellite navigation systems such as GAGAN and IRNSS. ISRO launched the GSAT-14 using a domestic cryogenic engine in January 2014.