Shakti: IIT Madras develops India's first indigenous microprocessor

The researchers from Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) have designed India's first indigenous microprocessor called 'Shakti'.

• It is aimed at developing industrial-grade microprocessors and other components of the microprocessor ecosystem.
• It will also help to reduce dependency on imported microchips and risk of cyber-attacks.
• Microprocessors are the brain of all computing and electronic devices and are used to operate larger high-speed systems and supercomputers.

About Shakti microprocessor:

• It was designed, developed and booted by IIT Madras with the microchip fabricated in ISRO's Semi-Conductor Laboratory at Chandigarh.
• It has been developed under a project partly funded by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), as part of the two-decade-old efforts to develop indigenous microprocessors.
• Its design originates from open source instruction set architecture (ISA), a set of basic instructions called RISC V, which makes it customisable to any device.
• ISA is programming or machine language and provides commands to processor instructing it on functions to be executed.
• RISC-V is open, free ISA which enables new era of processor innovation through open standard collaboration.
• It delivers new level of free, extensible software and hardware freedom on architecture.

What is the significance of this microchip?

• It will reduce dependency on imported microchips especially in communication and defence sectors and thus eliminate the risk of cyber-attacks.
• It can be used in mobile computing, wireless and networking systems.
• It may also provide power to mobile phones, smart meters and surveillance cameras.

What is Parashakti?

• IIT M researchers are now conducting research on 'Parashakti', an advanced microprocessor for supercomputers.
• It will be a super scaler processor that will be ready by December 2018.
• It will have its applications in desktops and 32 such interconnected microprocessors may be used in supercomputers.

Question:

Q. What is India's first indigenous microprocessor designed by the researchers from Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) called?
a. Shakti
b. Samriddhi
c. Buddhi
d. None of the above