IN-SPACe urges private space firms to use SCL Mohali’s indigenous space-grade chips

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The news

Bengaluru. The Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), which supervises space activities by non-governmental entities, on Tuesday urged startups, industry, academia and researchers to use chips made by the government-run Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL), Mohali, for space and launch vehicles, The Economic Times reports. SCL, set up in 1976, is India’s only integrated device manufacturing facility — it designs, fabricates, tests and packages chips under one roof — and made the CMOS chips used in the Mars Orbiter Mission. At a joint webinar, SCL said about 15 of its products have flight heritage, meaning they have worked on a real mission; it offers sensors, converters, processors, memories and custom chips. Its quarterly wafer runs are open to companies. Startups GalaxEye and InspeCity attended.

Prelims nuggets

IN-SPACe, created in 2020 under the Department of Space, is the single-window agency that promotes and authorises space activities of non-governmental entities.
The Indian Space Policy, 2023 lets private firms undertake end-to-end space activities and assigns ISRO to research and advanced technology.
Radiation-hardened chips are designed to keep working despite cosmic rays and solar particles that would corrupt or damage ordinary electronics in orbit.