ISRO & SCL Develop Indigenous 32-Bit Microprocessors for Space Missions

The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre of ISRO and the Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL) in Chandigarh have collaboratively created 32-bit Microprocessors -- Vikram 3201 and Kalpana 3201 -- intended for space uses, according to the space agency. Vikram 3201 is the initial entirely Indian-developed 32-bit microprocessor certified for operation in the extreme environmental conditions of launch vehicles. 

The processor was produced at the 180nm (nanometer) CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) semiconductor manufacturing fab of SCL.

According to a statement issued recently by ISRO, this processor is a more advanced version of the domestically developed 16-bit Vikram 1601 microprocessor, which has been functioning in the avionics systems of ISRO’s launch vehicles since 2009.

This microprocessor has been created to support open-source software tools as well as in-house developed simulators and IDE (Integrated Development Environment), and has been verified with flight software, it stated.

ISRO states that Vikram 3201 and Vikram 1601 feature a tailored Instruction Set Architecture, supporting floating-point computations and high-level programming in the Ada language.

All software tools, including the Ada compiler, assembler, linker, simulator, and Integrated Development Environment (IDE), have been created internally by ISRO. Additionally, a C language compiler is currently being developed to offer users greater flexibility in various domains.

Four additional devices, collaboratively created with SCL, were also delivered for the substantial miniaturization of the launch vehicle Avionics system.

This encompasses two variants of a Reconfigurable Data Acquisition System (RDAS) that integrate several locally designed 24-bit Sigma-Delta Analog to Digital Converters into one chip, accompanied by a Relay driver Integrated Circuit and a Multi-Channel Low Drop-out Regulator Integrated Circuit for applications requiring high reliability, it stated