Karachi students design the country’s first microprocessor

[ssethii]

KARACHI: Pakistan has designed the country’s first microprocessor, taking the first step to make its mark in the 500 billion global market for microprocessors.
Using the open source technologies in partnership with Google, 2 systems on-chip microprocessors consist of RISC-V, an open standard instruction set architect developed by the international organization based in Switzerland, which is a significant step towards Pakistan’s self-reliance in digital technology. ۔
This microprocessor is the result of research on semiconductor technologies in Pakistan’s first Microelectronics Research Laboratory at the Usman Institute of Technology, an IT engineering institute in Pakistan, and undergraduate students under the supervision of PhD specialist Dr. Ali Ahmad Ansari. Designed. Designed in Pakistan, these microprocessors were designed under a Google-funded program and were selected from 40 open service processors designed in different countries around the world that will arrive in Pakistan in chip format by next month. Will be the first RISC-V microprocessor. This processor has been named Barak which consists of two parts one is called Genesis and the other is called Ghazi. These processors will be useful for solutions containing Internet of Things and through machine learning and artificial intelligence methods. Can be installed in electronics, vehicles and machines that make human life easier.
Dr. Ali Ahmad Ansari of Karachi
The credit for the development of the first microprocessors in Pakistan goes to Dr. Ali Ahmad Ansari, a young IT expert from Karachi who turned down the opportunity to settle in any country in the world and decided to come to Pakistan and use his skills for the country and the nation. What
Dr. Ali Ahmad Ansari obtained first position in Radio Electronics from Sindh Technical Board in Matriculation across the province. After doing Pre-Engineering from DJ Science College, he went to NED where he got admission in Electronics Department and from here to do BE Electronics. He later completed a Masters and a PhD in Electronics and Communication Engineering from South Korea on a Higher Education Commission scholarship. Dr. Ali Ahmad Ansari is part of the Advisory Panel of Elsevier, a global research institute on healthcare advanced science. He made two inventions during his PhD and worked in fields such as TVLSI and TCAS. Research competitions became part of international journals. He was selected as a Horton member of Europe’s Best Talent Investment Company, Entrepreneurs First K, and the UK issued him a UK visa, declaring him a global talent.
The beginning of a new chapter
The global market for semiconductors or microprocessors is estimated at 500 500 billion, which is expected to double in the next five years. Designing microprocessors in Pakistan is ushering in a new chapter for Pakistani IT engineers to showcase their talents globally. Pakistan’s IT engineers will be able to earn a monthly stipend of Rs 3 to 6 lakh by providing services to microprocessor manufacturing companies through verification and designing of microprocessors. However, the creation of a complete ecosystem to create these professional capabilities in IT engineers and The provision of training through effective tools is essential, which has been initiated in the Micro Electronics Research Laboratory of the Usman Institute.

Manufacture of Microprocessors Capital Industry
Manufacturing of microprocessors is a multi-faceted industry. In contrast, the “fabless model” is more suitable for Pakistan in which software engineers verify and design microprocessors. Personal skills of microprocessor designing and verification are common in Pakistan. After that, the world’s microprocessor companies can turn to Pakistan. Fabless model manufacturing of microprocessors is a method of designing and selling hardware devices and semiconductor chips by which microprocessors are designed for semiconductor manufacturers called foundries. Usually fabless companies like Apple, HP, Dell and Facebook do not have their own foundry or fabrication facility. Yes, according to experts, the same method would be suitable for Pakistan.
Demand for microprocessors worldwide
The use of digital technologies is becoming more common around the world at home and now smart electronic devices are being developed. Smartphone-operated air conditioners, microwaves and connected refrigerators have also become commonplace in Pakistan, with the concept of a smart home making homes safer and more economical through digital technologies, while the auto industry is now using digital technologies. Are becoming common. Vehicles equipped with modern sensors are coming to the market. All these smart devices and machinery are incomplete without microprocessors so the demand for microprocessors is increasing all over the world but with it the cyber security concerns are also increasing. When are the microprocessors installed in home appliances sending data to anyone? I don’t know, so imported microprocessors that are being used in Pakistan can also be a threat to Pakistan’s security.
It will help ensure that ATT is an important step towards strengthening self-sufficiency and internal security in Pakistan’s digital technologies.
Immeasurable IT and software engineering talent
According to Dr. Ali Ahmad Ansari, the youth of Pakistan have immense talent in information technology and software engineering, but in order to harness these talents, a deeper partnership in academia and industry needs to be fostered. The academy says that there is no industry in Pakistan while the industry is not willing to trust the academy. It is important to break this cycle of mistrust in order to harness the potential of IT in Pakistan. He said that the method of teaching technology in Pakistan also needs to be changed. The teaching method based on the problems of daily life in Pakistan has to be developed and the courses have to be made fruitful. He said that global open service platforms are playing an important role in the field of technology and we need to connect our students with these open service technologies as soon as possible. Advising future engineers, he said that an engineer should think in terms of providing a solution to a problem. The more time an engineer gives to solve a problem based on engineering principles, the stronger his career will be. Whether engineers work in their own company or in another company, they always have to take the approach of solving the problem. In order to solve the problem, it is necessary to look at the problem in depth. Engineers should not limit themselves to technology and electronics or computers as all sectors are now interconnected.

https://www.etechjuice.com/karachi-students-design-the-countrys-first-microprocessor/

 

[Baz2020]

Please tell me its not a clone of some Chinese crap please prove me wrong

 

[313ghazi]

Congratulations to the people involved. Everything starts with small steps, even if it is a "clone of some chinese crap".

 

[flameboard]

Please tell me its not a clone of some Chinese crap please prove me wrong

“Designed in Pakistan, these microprocessors were designed under a Google-funded program and were selected from 40 open service processors designed in different countries around the world that will arrive in Pakistan in chip format by next month. Will be the first RISC-V microprocessor. This processor has been named Barak which consists of two parts one is called Genesis and the other is called Ghazi”

This was likely based off of open source designs. Processors typically utilize design features that have been established as successful.
For example ARM processors are the basis for Apple’s own line of processors. So far this is just an academic answer to a Google challenge, but it shows potential. The best thing about this is that someone designed and verified a chip using research and technology within Pakistan.

 

[Qmjd]

Please tell me its not a clone of some Chinese crap please prove me wrong

It's a open source design challenge by google and funded by google.palistani design team wins.
It's simple

 

[Baz2020]

Congratulations to the people involved. Everything starts with small steps, even if it is a "clone of some chinese crap".

Thank you for proving me right.

 

[jamahir]

Yaar, why do some people keep referring RISC-V as "Country's first microprocessor" ? Happened in India too.

These "indigenous" projects are just local implementations of the open source, international processor ISA - RISC-V. Just like building another distro of Linux.

Exciting would be news that some Indian or Pakistani individual or group designed a processor - or operating system - from scratch. Not this RISC-V or Linux overstatements.

 

[313ghazi]

Thank you for proving me right.

You don't need me to prove you right, you were always right because you felt you were right.

I know as much about microprocessors and this particular one as is written in the article. I have no other information.

My whole point was regardless of how its made, its a step forward. I have no idea how its made.

But if my post helps you feel better so be it.

 

[That Guy]

Thank you for proving me right.

Good job ignoring the actual answer to your question, and going straight to the one comment that confirms your bias.

 

[jamahir]

Congratulations to the people involved. Everything starts with small steps, even if it is a "clone of some chinese crap".

Even the Chinese haven't managed to design a processor of their own. They use ARM, MIPS, x86, DEC Alpha and other Western designs.

 

[ssethii]

Yaar, why do some people keep referring RISC-V as "Country's first microprocessor" ? Happened in India too.

These "indigenous" projects are just local implementations of the open source, international processor ISA - RISC-V. Just like building another distro of Linux.

Exciting would be news that some Indian or Pakistani individual or group designed a processor - or operating system - from scratch. Not this RISC-V or Linux overstatements.

You are comparing apple with orange here or don't have any knowledge of computer architecture. You can choose any ISA to start designing a processor or a microprocessor along with its peripherals. You don't go back to defining an ISA every time you want to build a microprocessor on top of that. RISC-V is popular because it is open source and there are no licensing fees involved for its use. It is the Android or Linux of the hardware world.

 

[jamahir]

You are comparing apple with orange here or don't have any knowledge of computer architecture. You can choose any ISA to start designing a processor or a microprocessor along with its peripherals. You don't go back to defining an ISA every time you want to build a microprocessor on top of that. RISC-V is popular because it is open source and there are no licensing fees involved for its use.

Though I am not a formal electronics engineer I have been designing a microprocessor and operating system for some years. One of the defining differences of the processor with other commercial designs is that it is clock-less. And the OS will be microkernel-based.

I have spent years on simplifying the designs of the processor and OS.

Potentially, any group of formal electronics engineers can implement an existing design ( like x86 or RISC-V ), no great shakes. What would be interesting, intellectually, is to create a new design.

It is the Android or Linux of the hardware world.

More interesting would be building the SpaceX of the hardware world and of the OS world.

 

[ssethii]

Though I am not a formal electronics engineer I have been designing a microprocessor and operating system for some years. One of the defining differences of the processor with other commercial designs is that it is clock-less. And the OS will be microkernel-based.

I have spent years on simplifying the designs of the processor and OS.

Potentially, any group of formal electronics engineers can implement an existing design ( like x86 or RISC-V ), no great shakes. What would be interesting, intellectually, is to create a new design.



More interesting would be building the SpaceX of the hardware world and of the OS world.

I thought you were just being naive but now you have started playing dumb too. SpaceX of hardware world? what? clock-less processor? how are you going to drive those flops? Essentially, what you are trying to say is if you are building a car don't build your first car using a combustion engine because everybody in the world is doing it. what's with you Indians always trying to re-invent the wheel.

 

[jamahir]

I thought you were just being naive but now you have started playing dumb too. SpaceX of hardware world? what? clock-less processor? how are you going to drive those flops?

I am not the only one talking about it. From this Wikipedia page :

Asynchronous CPU

Asynchronous CPUs are one of several ideas for radically changing CPU design.

Unlike a conventional processor, a clockless processor (asynchronous CPU) has no central clock to coordinate the progress of data through the pipeline. Instead, stages of the CPU are coordinated using logic devices called "pipeline controls" or "FIFO sequencers." Basically, the pipeline controller clocks the next stage of logic when the existing stage is complete. In this way, a central clock is unnecessary. It may actually be even easier to implement high performance devices in asynchronous, as opposed to clocked, logic:

• components can run at different speeds on an asynchronous CPU; all major components of a clocked CPU must remain synchronized with the central clock;
• a traditional CPU cannot "go faster" than the expected worst-case performance of the slowest stage/instruction/component. When an asynchronous CPU completes an operation more quickly than anticipated, the next stage can immediately begin processing the results, rather than waiting for synchronization with a central clock. An operation might finish faster than normal because of attributes of the data being processed (e.g., multiplication can be very fast when multiplying by 0 or 1, even when running code produced by a naive compiler), or because of the presence of a higher voltage or bus speed setting, or a lower ambient temperature, than 'normal' or expected.

Asynchronous logic proponents believe these capabilities would have these benefits:

• lower power dissipation for a given performance level, and
• highest possible execution speeds.

The biggest disadvantage of the clockless CPU is that most CPU design tools assume a clocked CPU (i.e., a synchronous circuit). Many tools "enforce synchronous design practices".[17] Making a clockless CPU (designing an asynchronous circuit) involves modifying the design tools to handle clockless logic and doing extra testing to ensure the design avoids metastableproblems. The group that designed the AMULET, for example, developed a tool called LARD[18] to cope with the complex design of AMULET3.

Despite the difficulty of doing so, numerous asynchronous CPUs have been built, including:

• the ORDVAC and the (identical) ILLIAC I (1951)[19][20]
• the Johnniac (1953)[21]
• the WEIZAC (1955)
• the Kiev (1958). A Soviet machine using the programming language with pointers much earlier than they came to the PL/1 language.

[22]

• the ILLIAC II (1962)[19]
• The Victoria University of Manchester built Atlas (1964)
• The ICL 1906A and 1906S mainframe computers, part of the 1900 series and sold from 1964 for over a decade by ICL[23]
• Polish computers KAR-65 and K-202 (1965 and 1970 respectively)
• The Honeywell CPUs 6180 (1972)[24] and Series 60 Level 68 (1981)[25][26] upon which Multics ran asynchronously
• Soviet bit-slice microprocessor modules (late 1970s)[27][28] produced as К587,[29] К588[30] and К1883 (U83x in East Germany)[31]
• The Caltech Asynchronous Microprocessor, the world-first asynchronous microprocessor (1988);
• the ARM-implementing AMULET (1993 and 2000);
• the asynchronous implementation of MIPS R3000, dubbed MiniMIPS (1998);
• several versions of the XAP processor experimented with different asynchronous design styles: a bundled data XAP, a 1-of-4 XAP, and a 1-of-2 (dual-rail) XAP (2003?);[32]
• an ARM-compatible processor (2003?) designed by Z. C. Yu, S. B. Furber, and L. A. Plana; "designed specifically to explore the benefits of asynchronous design for security sensitive applications";[32]
• the "Network-based Asynchronous Architecture" processor (2005) that executes a subset of the MIPS architecture instruction set;[32]
• the ARM996HS processor (2006) from Handshake Solutions
• the HT80C51 processor (2007?) from Handshake Solutions[33]
• the SEAforth multi-core processor (2008) from Charles H. Moore.[34]
• the GA144[35] multi-core processor (2010) from Charles H. Moore.
• TAM16: 16-bit asynchronous microcontroller IP core (Tiempo)[36]
• the Aspida asyncronous DLX core[37] The asynchronous open-source DLX processor (ASPIDA) has been successfully implemented both in ASIC and FPGA versions.[38]

The ILLIAC II was the first completely asynchronous, speed independent processor design ever built; it was the most powerful computer at the time.[19]

DEC PDP-16 Register Transfer Modules (ca. 1973) allowed the experimenter to construct asynchronous, 16-bit processing elements. Delays for each module were fixed and based on the module's worst-case timing.

The Caltech Asynchronous Microprocessor (1988) was the first asynchronous microprocessor (1988). Caltech designed and manufactured the world's first fully Quasi Delay Insensitive processor.[citation needed] During demonstrations, the researchers loaded a simple program which ran in a tight loop, pulsing one of the output lines after each instruction. This output line was connected to an oscilloscope. When a cup of hot coffee was placed on the chip, the pulse rate (the effective "clock rate") naturally slowed down to adapt to the worsening performance of the heated transistors. When liquid nitrogen was poured on the chip, the instruction rate shot up with no additional intervention. Additionally, at lower temperatures, the voltage supplied to the chip could be safely increased, which also improved the instruction rate – again, with no additional configuration.

In 2004, Epson manufactured the world's first bendable microprocessor called ACT11, an 8-bit asynchronous chip.[39][40][41][42][43] Synchronous flexible processors are slower, since bending the material on which a chip is fabricated causes wild and unpredictable variations in the delays of various transistors, for which worst-case scenarios must be assumed everywhere and everything must be clocked at worst-case speed. The processor is intended for use in smart cards, whose chips are currently limited in size to those small enough that they can remain perfectly rigid.

In 2014, IBM announced a SyNAPSE-developed chip that runs in an asynchronous manner, with one of the highest transistor counts of any chip ever produced. IBM's chip consumes orders of magnitude less power than traditional computing systems on pattern recognition benchmarks.[44]

Read the rest of the page too.

Essentially, what you are trying to say is if you are building a car don't build your first car using a combustion engine because everybody in the world is doing it. what's with you Indians always trying to re-invent the wheel.

Why can't I power my car with say hydrogen or some other method ? Why should it be petrol IC ( x86, ARM etc ) or battery-only ( RISC-V ) ?

 

[ssethii]

I am not the only one talking about it. From this Wikipedia page :

Read the rest of the page too.

asynchronous means clock-less?
stop quoting me further on any technology-related threads, I have enough of Indian Vedic science class today and I don't want to spoil my fast.