SHAKTI- means “the power”. Shakti the first microprocessor designed and developed by IIT Madras. A group of engineers from Computer Science Department under the guidance of their professor managed to develop a built in microprocessor which can be deliberately used in mobile computing and wireless devices.
Shakti is less vulnerable to systems infected with hardware Trojans. According to the team IITM Shakti processor targets clock speeds to suit for various handy-user applications like electronic devices, mobile computing, embedded low power systems and networking systems.
In July 2018 Shakti’s team made an attempt to create first 300 chips, like RISECREEK was produced under the project Shakti which is then fabricated by Multinational chip Manufacturer Intel’s facility at Oregon, USA which was successfully booted into the LINUX OS. Now, the fabrication is done in India.
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Types of processors:
Shakti has divided its microprocessor into 3 types:
- Base processors
- Multi processors.
- Experimental processors.
The base processor is again classified in to 3 types:
- E-class processor which is used in embedded applications, robotic controller boards, and in IoT boards.
- The C-class processor which is used in smartphone applications and runs at a clock frequency of 1.5 GHz
- I-class processor it is a performance-oriented core which could be used in Laptop’s, PC’s .the range of processor is 1.5 to 2.0GHz.
In fact there are different types of multi and experimental processors too.
Salient features of Shakti:
- The design of Shakti is unique hence it can be used in any sector.
- It is mainly designed for low power wireless embedded systems and networking systems.
- Shakti is completely designed on new RISC-V ISA (Instruction set architecture)
- Shakti is one of the few open-source Microprocessor’s available in electronic markets.
- Shakti will never be outdated as it is made with all international standards.
- It is a revolutionary processor which laid the path in computing design for the next 50 years.
The basic design of microprocessors heads from selecting the best ISA (instruction set Architecture). Shakti is designed on the new RISC-V ISA .it is free open-source ISA which is creating a new era in the innovation of processors.
Comparison of Shakti Vs Intel Vs ARM:
The comparison of Shakti with Intel is unfair because Intel uses Von Neumann architecture whereas Shakti has Harvard architecture. In Von Neumann architecture there is only one pipe to pass instruction and data whereas Harvard architecture uses two pipes. Shakti could be comparable with ARM’s own Cortex A55.
Why Shakti doesn’t use Intel or ARM?
Shakti has a RISC-V custom design chip that can be used on the user’s requirement. But this is not same with Intel and ARM let me explain you with a handy example suppose we go to buy a bike the dealer tells us that he provides the bike unless we purchase the car, the same situation is with Intel and ARM it provides all the instruction sets which are not required for the user.
Do we find any Indian competitors to Shakti?
Well In that case I would tell yes .PARAM 8000 the first Indian super computer designed by a company named CDAC (Centre for development and advanced computing) has a strategy of developing their own super computers which supports their own processor.
Advantages of Shakti:
The first and foremost advantage is that Shakti provides security whereas in other processors security loopholes and other vulnerabilities are hidden .and this could become a major issue for national missions. Recently Intel faced a bug in their major CPU’s.
The second advantage is it provides customizability like I have previously explained with an example of buying a bike we could get what we want and no one would question or force to buy other products.
It is safe to be adopted by any government agencies like nuclear power plants and even in defense. It could be used by ISRO’s and NAVIC satellites in the future as it is safe and secure. Finally, the engineers from IIT proved that India could also make their own processors and this is the proud movement to the country.
What are your thoughts on this processor! Will it satisfy the user’s requirement? come on comment below. Hope you liked the article for more amazing feed stays tuned to eyestech.in.
