DRDO Chip Contracts Signal India's Shift to Domestic Silicon in Defence Electronics

The Defence Research and Development Organisation has awarded semiconductor design and development contracts to five Indian companies as part of its initiative to indigenise the chip content of Indian defence electronic systems. The contracts, awarded through MeitY's Technology Development and Transfer Scheme in coordination with DRDO, cover a range of defence-relevant chip types: Morphing Machines receives funding to develop a reconfigurable processor for software-defined radio applications in electronic warfare, Calligo Technologies is contracted for a hardware security module chip for secure military communications equipment, InCore Semiconductors for a RISC-V based embedded processor for radar signal processing, AGNIT Semiconductors for a gallium nitride power amplifier chip for phased array radar transmit modules, and L&T Semiconductor Technologies for a navigation processor chip for India's NAVIC regional satellite navigation system receivers. The contracts collectively represent the first systematic government funding programme under which commercial Indian semiconductor companies are contracted to develop specific chip designs for identified defence application requirements.

Programme Structure and Indigenisation Goal

India's defence electronics industry has historically relied on imported chips for virtually all high-performance semiconductor functions in radar, communication, electronic warfare, and navigation systems. This dependence creates supply chain vulnerabilities, export control exposure, and limitations on the integration of sensitive system parameters into chip designs that can be addressed only through domestic silicon. The DRDO chip design contract programme is designed to close this gap by creating a pipeline of domestically designed chips that can be certified for use in identified defence platform programmes, replacing imported equivalents. The contracts specify the performance requirements, environmental ratings, and reliability standards that the chips must meet to qualify for the target application, providing a clear development target that commercial companies can design to while maintaining ownership of their IP for potential dual-use commercial exploitation.

GaN Power Amplifier and Radar Technology

The gallium nitride power amplifier contract awarded to AGNIT Semiconductors is the most technologically demanding of the five contracts and addresses a component type that is central to India's ambitions for a domestically designed phased array radar programme. GaN transistors can operate at higher power densities, higher efficiencies, and higher frequencies than silicon or gallium arsenide alternatives, making them the preferred technology for radar transmit modules where output power, bandwidth, and size are simultaneously constrained. AGNIT, founded by researchers from IISc with expertise in compound semiconductor device physics, has been working on GaN-on-silicon and GaN-on-silicon-carbide HEMT devices, and the DRDO contract funds the development of a specific power amplifier chip matched to the frequency band and power level of the target radar application. Success in this programme would give India a domestic source of GaN RF power chips, reducing dependence on US and European suppliers who are subject to export control restrictions for defence-related applications.

Dual-Use Value and Commercial Spin-Offs

The defence chip design contracts are structured to allow the contracted companies to exploit the developed chip IP for commercial applications where the defence-specific requirements are a subset of the commercial application's requirements. The RISC-V embedded processor designed for radar signal processing by InCore, for example, has potential applications in industrial DSP and edge computing markets where its certified reliability and performance characteristics have commercial value. The hardware security module designed by Calligo for military communications has direct commercial applications in financial payment terminals, industrial IoT security, and critical infrastructure protection markets. This dual-use value makes the defence contracts commercially attractive to the contracted companies beyond the direct contract revenue, creating aligned incentives between government indigenisation goals and private sector investment in defence semiconductor capability.