The Centre’s proposal to set up a foundry for chips that are used in commercial products, including computers, would receive a huge response from prospective companies, said VK Sarswat, scientific advisor to defence minister.
“The department of IT has already issued request for proposal (RFP) for the project, which is open to all the providers. There is going to be great competition coming from both private and public sector players,” he said on the sidelines of the three-day annual conference of the Indian Nuclear Society (INS), which began here on Thursday.
He also said the foundry facility at Chandigarh, which has been upgraded to 180 nano meter resolution, would commence full production by 2012-13 and the chips produced here would be able to meet some of the requirements of the defence establishment.
The chips used for commercial applications require higher levels of resolution and the first foundry to make such chips in India is expected to become a near-term reality once the department of IT successfully completes the ongoing process of identifying the developer.
Apart from this, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), in association with other governmental agencies, is building the new-age electro optical nano semiconductor foundry, he said.
On the new research initiatives that are under way in warfare systems, Saraswat said the DRDO and the Department of Atomic Energy had been spearheading the research on development of laser weapon systems. "A lot of work is going on on these weapons of the future. We are yet to move from the physics portion of research to engineering and product development stage," he said.
Speaking at the inaugural session, R Chidambaram, principal scientific adviser to Government of India, and Srikumar Banerjee, chairman Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and secretary, Department of Atomic Energy, emphasised the need for product development in areas of electronics and other hardware crucial for both defence and civilian applications to regain the focus that the country had during the technology denial period till the 80s.