Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Wipro have developed a system on chip (SoC) that can be used for civil applications such as tablets and mobile phones, MV Gowtama, Chairman and Managing Director of BEL stated.
An SoC integrates all components of a computer or other electronic systems such as memory, central processing unit and input/output ports.
"It is a fully-fledged chip with all interfaces such as USB-3 and other security features. SoC can be used in tablet devices to make our own secured phones. We are also trying to see other applications for it," Gowtama told Moneycontrol on the sidelines of the company's annual conference.
"We have taken Wipro as the integration partner as they have a lot of experience. They are working with us closely at our facility at BEL," he added.
While everything from the design to the verification of the chip was done in India, it is being manufactured in Taiwan as the fabrication techniques are unavailable in the country, a senior official in BEL said.
Initially, 500 chips were produced to be used for tablets, secured phones and Software Defined Radios (SDR). BEL is also working on EVM machines and some of the electro-optic applications such as sensors.
"Once we have different applications and it is proven, we can go in for big production," the official added.
Besides civil applications, the Defence PSU is also working closely with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to develop chips for phones that use the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System - NavIC, which the latter operates.
Existing mobile chipsets are not designed to receive NavIC signals which are at a different frequency from GPS. ISRO had earlier said it will work with the government and mobile chip manufactures regarding the same.
The senior official said BEL scientists are working closely with ISRO and developed and handed-over to ISRO the pilot hardware for the short code, which is used to send SMS and MMS.
ISRO is working on the long code, which is used for person-to-person communication and might take longer, the official added.
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