India’s First Indigenous Microprocessor

Why in news?

Union IT Minister presented India’s first fully indigenous microprocessor to PM Modi at Semicon India 2025, in New Delhi.

• Fully indigenous - The first fully indigenous microprocessor of India - is a type of semiconductor chip, called Vikram 3201.

In 1971, the intel company launched a chip called the 4004 – as the world’s first microprocessor - “a micro-programmable computer on a chip”.

• Developed by – The semiconductor laboratory of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
• Microprocessor – It is an integrated circuit that serves as the brain of a computer, performing calculations, logic operations, and controlling other components by executing program instructions.
• Integrated circuit (IC)/Chip – microprocessor is a tiny electronic device that packs numerous interconnected electronic components like transistors, resistors, and capacitors onto a single semiconductor crystal, usually silicon.
• Semiconductor - It is a weak conductor of electricity, when certain materials are added to them and an electric field is applied, current can start to flow.
• Adding phosphorus to semiconducting materials, such as silicon and germanium, for example, allows the flow of a negative current.
• Manufacturing facility – The tiny chips are made in highly specialised manufacturing facilities (known as foundries) through a rigorous process called wafer fabrication or wafer fab.
• The fabrication requires clean rooms designed to maintain sterile conditions to prevent contamination by air particles.
• Significance –
  • Semiconductor chips are the building blocks of modern computation.
  • From smartphones to the vast data centres powering the Internet, from electric cars to cruise missiles, from high-end luxury products to weather-predicting supercomputers — all of them run on these tiny chips.

Quick Facts

References

1. Indian Express | India’s first indigenous microprocessor

2. PIB | SEMICON 2025