India Unveils DHRUV64 Indigenous RISC-V Chip
India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has unveiled the DHRUV64, the country's first indigenous 64-bit microprocessor based on the open-source RISC-V architecture. The development is part of a national strategy to strengthen self-reliance in semiconductor technology. Such sovereign silicon projects are gaining strategic value in aerospace and defense by reducing supply chain risks.
- The chip was developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), a government R&D organization originally founded in 1987 to build supercomputers when India was denied access to US technology. - DHRUV64 is a dual-core processor fabricated on a 28nm process, operates at 1 GHz, and uses an out-of-order pipeline. Its microarchitecture includes a full Memory Management Unit (MMU) and support for single and double-precision floating-point operations, enabling it to run Linux. - The processor is a key outcome of India's Digital India RISC-V (DIR-V) program, a national initiative to accelerate the development of a domestic semiconductor ecosystem based on the open-source architecture. - While its performance is modest compared to consumer-grade chips, it is targeted at embedded systems where reliability is critical, such as telecom base stations, industrial automation, and automotive modules. - The open-source nature of the RISC-V ISA allows for greater architectural transparency and customization compared to proprietary designs. This enables the implementation of custom security features directly in the hardware and can reduce the attack surface by including only necessary instructions. - DHRUV64 joins a growing portfolio of Indian-developed processors, including the SHAKTI series from IIT Madras, which has been used in aerospace applications, and the THEJAS64, also from C-DAC. - C-DAC's roadmap includes follow-on quad-core processors, the DHANUSH and DHANUSH+. These are planned for 28nm and 16/14nm process nodes with target clock speeds of up to 2 GHz.
