India’s processor based Tab PC soon

The proposed tablet PC would be built on a system on chip

A totally indigenously designed tablet PC is likely to hit the markets by end of next year. The proposed tablet PC would be built on a system on chip (SoCs) of city-based fabless semiconductor company Dreamchip Electronics Pvt Ltd (DEPL).

At the core of the SoCs will be proprietary multi-core processor architecture, founder director of DEPL Gopi Kumar Bulusu said. The SoCs will be available in three variants – Siddhi, Vani and Sandesh, each specified and optimized for a distinct tablet application.

Siddhi is designed to power basic student’s book read tablets that are optimised for low cost large volume applications. Siddhi powered tablets are expected to replace printed text books. Vani is targeted to meet advanced student’s requirements for tablets that offer a rich multi-media experience. The high-end SoC Sandesh is optimised for use in citizen-centric e-governance and e-commerce applications.

Dreamchip proposes to use its electronic design automation platform – Teraptor – to deliver a high technology architecture that matches the best in the world in performance.

The use of Teraptor gives the company the advantage of adapting the design to suit the changes in technology, he explained.

Indian electronic manufacturers would be able to use the SoCs to create world class tablet computers and offer them to customers in India and rest of the world at competitive rates.

Further, the SoCs are expected to be priced in Indian rupee for the Indian market thereby eliminating the exchange rate fluctuation risk for the manufacturers.

“Following the encouraging response from prospective customers Dreamchip Electronics is initially targeting the large and fast growing Indian market. Dreamchip plans to offer the SoCs globally at a later stage,” Mr Gopi said.

The prototypes for all the three variants would be available by the third quarter of this year and test chips would be delivered by next calendar year, he added.

The company is currently working on custom designed SoCs for major Indian electronic manufacturer TVS Electronics Limited.