The IP Cores which are already developed by TECHT:
1. Reconfigurable Parallel DSP Processor Design
Motivation :
High performance, flexibility, and low power consumptions are the major issues in developing DSP architectures i.e. achieving the highest performance at the lowest possible silicon cost. While the ASIC chips provide better performance over other technologies for a specific application, they suffer from inflexibility. On the other hand, FPGAs are flexible but are unable to meet the speed requirement of high-speed, advanced signal/image processing applications. However, FPGA does not provide “Highest Performance at Lowest Silicon Cost” for a given signal processing application since they are not optimized for any particular application.
So, there is a need to eliminate the drawback of FPGAs & ASICs by offering an innovative “Reconfigurable DSP Processor” for high-end DSP applications providing a balance between flexibility, reconfiguration latency & performance.
ESP microDesign, Inc. a start-up U.S. corporation aims "fabless" microelectronics venture by leveraging innovative digital signal processor technology conceived by Dr. Amitabha Sinha This technology will fulfill the unsatisfied desires of embedded application development customers for a very high-performance cost-effect programmable DSP application platform.
TECHT has extended its hands in a collaborative effort with ESP microDesign for successful implementation of this Processor along with a design automation tool “ Integrated development Environment(IDE) including Parallel ‘c’ Compiler( an extension to ‘c’)” to facilitate the user for ease in product development.
2. Reconfigurable Radio Processor:
Motivation:
Performance required by “Software Defined Radio (SDR) “poses many challenges in real-time applications because of their high computational complexity and therefore, designing a high-performance SDR with a high degree of flexibility becomes a major issue. While the fastest programmable DSP processors are unable to meet the speed requirements for SDR, System on chips ( SOCs) are also not suitable because of their limited flexibility.
Recently, FPGAs have emerged as high-performance programmable hardware to execute highly parallel, computationally intensive signal processing functions. Since the major building blocks for SDR are the signal processing functions, FPGAs are becoming a possible hardware platform for SDR. However, FPGAs are not optimized for radio applications, and because of their LUT-based approach, they can not offer the highest possible performance at the lowest silicon cost for a given signal processing function. TECHT addresses these issues by taking up a challenging job design, developing and implementing a special purpose Programmable “VLSI radio Processor” for implementing various radio schemes.
3. CVD Grown Carbon Nanomaterials
The discovery of new materials with unique properties is the principal parameter for the sustained development of contemporary devices and upliftment of device performances. In the last few decades, intensive research efforts were made to create a large number of novel materials, notably, those belonging to the nanometer regime. The outcome of the prolific research is the structures with reduced dimensions, viz. two-dimensional structure, one-dimensional structure, and zero-dimensional structure. As the size of the material reduces to nanometer-scale dimensions, the material, in general, becomes superior to its bulk counterpart for many applications owing to its higher surface-to-volume ratio, size-dependent properties, and potential for downscaling device size. Among different elements, Carbon, placed in group 14 (IV A), has become one of the most important elements in the periodic table owing to its ability to form sp3, sp2, and sp hybrids which results in 3D (diamond and graphite), 2D (graphene), 1D (carbon nanotube (CNT)), and 0D (Fullerene) materials with a wide variety of physical and chemical properties. Among different growth equipment for synthesizing carbon nanostructure, CVD marked its peerless position by being the most flexible in terms of growth parameters but maintaining the quality of the product at the commercial level. Thus CVD was used to grow CNT and graphene with varying structures and morphologies in our lab and some area of applications are also explored.
4. Tropical Rain Structure and its Impact on Tropospheric Radio-wave Propagation
Ka- and higher frequency bands have steadily become crucial for satellite links to meet the high bandwidth requirement of users. Propagation impairments like rain attenuation, scintillation, and depolarization become significant with an increase in frequency over 10 GHz. The impairments are quite severe in Ku/Ka bands. The situation is more critical especially in tropical regions like India as these locations experience heavy rainfall with distinguishable characteristics. Conventional FMTs are appropriate to circumvent the fade incurred in tropical locations at such higher frequency bands. Thus the validation of existing fade mitigation techniques (FMTs) as well as the development of a new model is essential at Ku/Ka band frequencies for effective utilization of communication resources with guaranteed quality of service. However, the limited data availability over India has restrained the propagation research at these frequencies in India. Presently, Ka-band data from the IPSTAR satellite is collected at Delhi Earth Station. Moreover, recently Ka-band beacons at 20/30 GHz on GSAT 14 have been launched which can provide an excellent opportunity to study the Ka-band channel characteristics due to rain attenuation over India.
Our research encompasses the area of propagation effects on satellite signals at microwave frequencies greater than 10 GHz due to the tropical atmosphere. Rain is a major meteorological phenomenon that most strongly influences the satellite communication systems and thus plays a major role in estimating the required fade margin to ensure the quality of service of the communication channel. The research is motivated by the need to characterize the effects of tropospheric scintillation, rain attenuation, and depolarization on satellite communications, particularly in tropical climates. The tropical region experiences intense raining conditions with distinguishable characteristics. Presently available propagation models were mostly established by utilizing data from different temperate zones and thus exhibit significant deviation while estimating degradations for tropical regions. Consequently, the research objective is to devise a futuristic Ku/Ka-band propagation model by incorporating the tropical region characteristics so that the models can take care of the additional degradations incurred in the tropical region.
The study will be helpful in providing an in-depth understanding of the physical phenomena associated with earth-space satellite signal propagation and the knowledge can be utilized for channel-modelling of Ka-band or higher frequency bands in view of the futuristic communication systems. Thus the study is very important in view of upcoming Ka-band satellite communication in the Indian region as planned by ISRO.
