Made in India semiconductor chips are no longer confined to laboratories and technology demonstrations. Indigenous processors and other semiconductor devices are already being used across India's space programme, including on lunar and solar missions and inside ISRO launch vehicles. Union Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw highlighted the achievement on National Space Day, August 23, saying, “Made in India chips are powering Indian Space Missions.”

More importantly, the Department of Space subsequently put specific hardware behind that statement. An official government release says domestically developed chips have been used on Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya-L1, while indigenous Vikram processors are deployed in launch vehicles. That makes the development more than a semiconductor-policy talking point. India already has home-grown silicon with actual spaceflight heritage.

Made in India Semiconductor Chips: Where Are They Already Flying?

The government's August 23 release identifies three clear examples. The Chandrayaan 3 mission used an Indian-made camera-related chip developed at Semiconductor Laboratory, or SCL, to support the Vikram lander's imaging system. Aditya-L1, India's solar observatory, uses radiation-hardened analogue-to-digital converter chips developed by SCL. And ISRO's launch vehicles use the indigenous Vikram processor for onboard computing.

SCL manufactures a much wider range of specialised space components, including radiation-hardened chips, CCD and CMOS imagers, ASICs and sensors designed to measure acceleration, temperature, pressure and acoustic conditions. Those are very different requirements from ordinary consumer semiconductors. Electronics used in an Indian space mission must function reliably through vibration, extreme temperatures and, depending on the application, radiation exposure.

Chandrayaan-3 Had More Than One Indigenous Chip Link

The Chandrayaan 3 mission provides one of the clearest demonstrations of India's existing capabilities. Reporting after the 2023 landing identified two SCL-made components associated with the mission. The VIKRAM1601 PE01 processor was used for navigation aboard the LVM3 launch vehicle that carried Chandrayaan-3 into space. SCL also fabricated the SC1216-0 CMOS Camera Configurator, which flew with the Vikram lander's imaging system. So describing the Chandrayaan connection simply as “a camera chip” is correct at a high level, but there is a broader indigenous semiconductor contribution behind the mission. SCL's own annual report lists both the Vikram 1601 processor and CMOS Camera Configurator under its Chandrayaan-3 contribution.

Aditya-L1 Shows the Chips Are Not Limited to Rockets

India's first dedicated solar observatory provides another example. The Department of Space says Aditya-L1 uses radiation-hardened ADC chips developed by SCL. SCL's annual report also lists radiation-hardened pipelined and Sigma-Delta ADC technologies in connection with the mission. An analogue-to-digital converter turns analogue signals from sensors into digital information that onboard electronics can process. That matters because it shows indigenous semiconductor work spreading beyond launch-vehicle computers into scientific spacecraft systems. For the Indian space programme, self-reliance therefore involves considerably more than producing one headline-grabbing CPU.

Vikram3201 Is the Next Major Step

The processor drawing the most attention now is VIKRAM3201. It is India's first fully Make-in-India 32-bit microprocessor qualified for the harsh environmental conditions of launch vehicles. ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre designed and developed the processor in collaboration with SCL. It was fabricated using SCL's 180nm CMOS process. The chip uses a custom instruction-set architecture and supports floating-point calculations and the Ada programming language. ISRO also developed key software tools—including its compiler, assembler, linker, simulator and development environment—in-house.

The first production lots were handed over in March 2025. That happened months before Ashwini Vaishnaw later presented the processor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during SEMICON India 2025, so the September event should be described as a major showcase rather than the chip's original introduction.

VIKRAM1601 Is Already Used Across All ISRO Launch Vehicles

The 16-bit VIKRAM1601 has a much longer operational history. ISRO says the processor has been flying in launch-vehicle avionics since 2009, while its fully Make-in-India version was inducted after SCL established its 180nm fabrication capability. A Department of Space parliamentary reply in February 2026 went further, stating that VIKRAM1601 had been inducted into the avionics systems of all ISRO launch vehicles. That is an important distinction for the story. India does not have to wait for VIKRAM3201 before it can claim domestically produced processors are flying on its rockets. An older indigenous generation is already operational across the fleet. The new 32-bit processor represents the next technological step.

What About Vaishnaw Saying Indian Rockets Will Get Chips ‘Soon’?

A July statement by Ashwini Vaishnaw initially appears contradictory. After meeting Skyroot Aerospace executives, he posted that “Made in Bharat” chips for “our rockets” would arrive soon. But the context matters. Skyroot responded that it looked forward to the day India-built chips fly on its rockets. The exchange was therefore about extending indigenous semiconductor use into India's emerging private launch industry, rather than suggesting that existing ISRO launch vehicles depend entirely on imported processors. That distinction resolves much of the apparent contradiction.

IRIS Is Another Chip to Watch

Another significant development is IRIS, or the Indigenous RISC-V Controller for Space Applications. ISRO's Inertial Systems Unit and IIT Madras jointly developed the 64-bit controller using the SHAKTI RISC-V processor baseline. The complete chain—from design and fabrication to packaging, motherboard production, software and successful boot—was completed in India. SCL fabricated the processor using its 180nm technology. However, IRIS should not yet be placed alongside VIKRAM1601 as an operational mission processor. When IIT Madras announced the successful development in February 2025, ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan said a product based on the controller was planned for flight testing. It therefore represents the next pipeline of indigenous technology rather than established flight deployment.

What This Means for the Indian Space Programme

India is not yet semiconductor-independent across every electronic component used in space. That remains an important caveat. But the evidence now shows that indigenous chips already perform real functions within the Indian space programme: launch-vehicle navigation and avionics, lunar imaging and solar-observation electronics among them. That is a stronger claim than saying India has simply designed prototype processors. For any future Indian space mission, the strategic goal will be to expand the number of critical components that can be designed, fabricated, qualified and supplied domestically.

VIKRAM1601 shows that such indigenous hardware can become operational across an entire launch fleet. VIKRAM3201 shows India now has a more capable 32-bit successor with spaceflight validation. IRIS shows another architecture moving through the development pipeline. So Made in India semiconductor chips are already in space. The next milestone is not proving that they can fly. It is ex