City all set to contribute to country’s semiconductors manufacturing mission

Lokmat News Network

By Mehboob Inamdar

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: Our city is all set to contribute to manufacturing chip mission and make the country a global hub through ‘Digital India RISC-V (DIR-V)-System-on-a-Chip (SoC) Design Laboratory’ which has been established at National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), under Chips to Startup Program (C2S).

Under this programme, the Government plans to set up around 20 semiconductor design, component manufacturing and display fabrication (fab) facilities over the next six years.

Talking to this newspaper, Executive Director of NIELIT Dr Jayaraj U Kidav said that undergraduate and postgraduate students would be imparted training through the courses for manufacturing indigenous chips and making our country a hub in the world in this sector.

He said that NEILIT of the city is among the 113 selected prestigious institutions of the country by MeitY to develop chips/application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) indigenously for different industrial and societal applications.

The DIR-V-SoC Design Laboratory at NIELIT, in collaboration with NIT Trichy and IIIT Trichy, is engaged in the design and development of ultra-low-power edge AI processors for IoT-enabled healthcare applications.

This R and D project is of five years duration and technology readiness level (TRL)-7 category. This initiative aims to support startups in creating future AI processors, addressing the nation's technological needs. “This alignment ensures that the laboratory contributes to the nation's goal of self-reliance in semiconductor technology,” he added.

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Enhancing employability in semi-conductor industry

It conducts advanced skilling programs focused on RISC-V processor-based SoC and embedded system design. The programs equip participants with industry-relevant skills in VLSI design, full custom chip design, semi-custom chip design, chip verification and testing, embedded hardware and software development, enhancing youths' employability in the semiconductor industry.

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Under the C2S initiative, the laboratory is equipped with industry-standard VLSI design tools from Synopsys, Cadence, AMD (Xilinx), Siemens-Mentor, Ansys and Keysight. It is also equipped with high-end FPGA development boards viz PYNQ, Boolean, Urabana, ZYNQ Ultrascale MPSoC, KRIA and Arty. These facilities support advanced research and hands-on training in VLSI, FPGA, and SoC design, analysis verification and testing.

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Support for Startups

The laboratory is ready to actively support startup industries in the SoC design, verification, and emulation domains. By providing necessary resources and guidance, it fosters innovation and entrepreneurship in the semiconductor sector. It aims to enable the creation of future microprocessors in India and achieve industry-grade silicon and design wins.