All the technological consumer products including computers and electronic devices have a basic unit of semiconductor chips working inside them. These chips are said to be the basic structural unit of all the appliances and devices. On a worldwide level the semiconductor chips market crossed $556 billion in 2021. Pakistan was not able to profit from this market rise due to lack of manufacturing in the country.
National university of science and technology NUST recently achieved the construction of a fully functioning and reliable microprocessor named as NTiny-E. The researchers at the university successfully completed the manufacture of the chip and took a step forward in making Pakistan self reliant on this technology. The microprocessor was designed by the NUST school of electrical engineering and computer sciences which is said to be a complete in-house design made without any import of parts from the foreign world.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), a leading microprocessor manufacturing commercial foundry was utilized by the researchers for chip fabrication. This milestone has put the country one step ahead in the market.
The researchers have also designed a complete environment for chip testing and installation into end products. A fully functioning circuit board and all the software requirements have also been designed along with the processor to attain the completion of the project. NTiny-E is said to target the market of embedded systems, ioT devices and consumer electronic products. The concerns regarding cyber security have also been alleviated due to the indigenous nature of this processor. The research team was led by Dr Rehan Ahmad and included Shaheer Sajid, Qazi Shahid Ullah, Abdul Moeed and Syed Talha Imam.
