‘Shakti’ The Microprocessor.

No doubt Qualcomm, Intel, MediaTek and various other names are the top manufacturers of Microprocessors. But IIT- Madras has done something really out of the box. So, what is behind this project? Let’s check.

• Rise from the RISE Laboratory-

• In the year 2014, this initiative was taken by the Reconfigurable Intelligent Systems Engineering (RISE) laboratory of IIT- Madras under the guidance of the head researcher Prof. Kamakoti Veezhinathan.
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  IIT-M

  

  Prof.Kamakoti
  The head researcher stated that “With the advent of Digital India, there are several applications that require customisable processor cores. The 180nm fabrication facility at SCL Chandigarh is crucial in getting these cores manufacturers within our Country,”. The main emphasis of the project is towards the clock speed which can favour various end-user devices whether it is a smartphone, low power wireless systems etc. Afterwards by the funding of Rs.11 Crores from Central Government paves the path by which India could be capable of fabricating their own microprocessors in the coming future and not only fabrication but self-sufficient and export too.

• Features and Fabrication-

• As we already know that many big names are already there with whom Shakti has to compete if it has to live long. From the features and design, it is very much clear that Shakti will not be going to die now or in the coming future. Under the Shakti Project, 6 microprocessors are under fabrication and all of them are based on RICS-V ISA for different purposes which we will see further. As said above the clock speed is the main agenda and not only clock speed but the design is accompanying too. Not only the front-end but the back-end design is under consideration as well because Shakti is handshaking with other partners to develop VLSI flow (front and back-end). For most of the front-end design, Bluespec System Verilog is the main contributor which can generate cycle-accurate C model whose in the simulation is 8-10x faster than state-of-the-art Verilog Simulator which will increase the design verification. This Verilog will not only speed up the verification but also 100% readable, manageable. The verification of the design is important because of design errors like race-conditions and type errors. So, no doubt this Verilog will prevent such errors.

• The Lineup of processors-

• Shakti is going to provide us with a huge ecosystem of microprocessors and multi-cores processors which can be used for basic to high-end operations very smoothly. Here they are:

• Base Processors:

• • E Class-

• • This one is the embedded class processor, built around a 3-stage in-order core. It is assembeled for low power and low compute applications and it can too run basic RTOs like FreeRTOs, Zephyr and eChronos. The market segment of the processor includes : smart cards, IoT sensors, motor-control and robotic platform.

• • C Class-

• • This C class Processor is introduced for mid-range applications and the core is 5-stage in-order design which is capable to run Linux and Sel4 easily. The main target of the processor is to control the 0.5-1.5 Ghz applications. Moreover it fully support RISC V-ISA and also best in fault tolaerations.

• • E Class-

• • The fabrication of this E Class Processor is carried out for the multi-threading, branch prediction. They are capable of 1.5-2.5 Ghz range of applications. Such processors are capable for mobiles, storage, networking the mobiles and other networking.

• Multi-Cores Processors-

• • M Class-

• • M Class Processors works with maximum of 8 Cores and the Cores are the combination of C and I Class cores. Here the Tile-Link is used as cache-coherent interconnect which is used with adapters and bridges to connect fast and slow periferals. Here  2 or 4 cores shares L2 cache.

• • S Class-

• • S Class Processors works with maximum of 32 cores. Such type of processors are used for heavy work loads like in Workstations and industries. Here the L2 and L3 cache are expected to be used where L3 cache are for desktop type applications.

• • H Class-

• • Such microprocessors are capable of 128 cores and there is the combination of C and I Class Processors. Here the use of L4 cache is for the high memory hierarchy. H Class processors are capable of for MI and AI. This processor will provide better I/O experiance.

• Experimental Processors-

• Apart from all the above there are T Class  and F Class Processors. The processors will help in buffer-overflow. Many other features are there like lock-step core configurations, fault localization circuits, ECC for critical memory blocks. The Experimental Processors are for these type of fault tolerations.

This is the whole lineup of Shakti Microprocessors and which will be capable of every basic to high-end workload. The example of the power of Shakti Microprocessor was seen in 2018 in Oregon, the USA where 300 processors were fabricated under the Shakti Project and they booted Linux operating system.

They all are capable of everything which you think and want. The point is that which gadget will they power first and when? Comment.

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