GS 3: Science & Technology | Indigenization of technology & developing new technology

Why in News?

• A Bengaluru based company SIGNALCHIP has fabricated high performance and cost- efficient semiconductor chips.
• These would enable high-speed wireless communication.

Highlights:

• Four chips designed by SIGNALCHIP

 SCBM3412: a single chip 4G/LTE modem including the baseband and transceiver sections in a single device
 SCBM3404: a single chip 4X4 LTE baseband modem
 SCRF3402: a 2X2 transceiver for LTE
 SCRF4502: a 2X2 transceiver for 5G NR standards

Specifications:

• The RF sections cover all LTE/5G-NR bands upto 6 GHz.
• These chips also support positioning using India’s own satellite navigation system, NAVIC. The combined multi-standard system-on-chip (SoC) can serve as a base station chipset for a wide range of form factors from low-cost indoor small cells to high performance base stations. Through the IPs created for devices, the company now has the potential to design products for multiple related fields.

Significance:

• Currently, in India, all devices and infrastructure, whether imported or domestically manufactured, use imported silicon chips. Silicon chip design is a very challenging activity requiring high-cost R&D, deep knowhow and mastery of multiple complex domains.
• Hence, this technology is not available in most countries.

Impact:

• Data Security is the paramount concern in the World today and India cannot remain secure in terms of data, unless it manufactures its own chips.
• India is just breaking into the elite club of the world and this will have huge implications for India’s data security and data sovereignty, besides the positive economic implications.
• At present only 8 companies and a few countries can design and build semiconductor chips.