IIT Bombay, one of India’s premier technology institute has made the country proud by developing the country’s first-ever indigenously-built SPARC ISA architecture based microprocessor called AJIT. The project comes under India’s ‘Made In India’ initiative which aims to make India a global manufacturing hub by encouraging both multinational as well as domestic companies to manufacture their products within the country.

AJIT is super cheap, it’s less than two US dollar(Rs. 100 to be exact)! Before you get too excited, AJIT isn’t going to power smartphone, it’s designed to power India’s satellites for IRNSS.

“We are planning to use AJIT in the receivers being developed for NAVIC or IRNSS, an indigenous navigation system for the Indian subcontinent,” said one of the processor’s designers in a Reddit AMA.

The processor has a clock speed of around 70-120MHz and is built on a 180nm technology. The clock speed of 400-500MHz is achievable in the next upgrade, said the researchers associated with development.

The researchers also expect that they will be able to manufacture the microprocessor in bulk within a year or two with keeping the cost as little as Rs. 100.

AJIT should not be confused with Shakti, India’s first-ever RISC-V architecture based microprocessor for smartphones and IoT devices. Shakti was developed in collaboration with Bluespec, a US-based semiconductor tool design company.

Via: IT