IIT Hyderabad, WiSig Develop Koala, ‘India’s First’ 5G Cellular Chipset

Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH), along with WiSig, has announced it has co-developed ‘Koala’ a Narrowband Internet-of-Things System-on-Chip (NB-IoT SoC), which is a 5G cellular chipset.

The Department of Telecommunication (DOT) has funded this indigenous 5G testbed project.

Koala enables low-bit rate Internet of Things (IoT) applications with long-range and device battery life up to 10 years. Smart metres, machine-to-machine connectivity, Industry 4.0, and a plethora of sensor connectivity, asset tracking, digital healthcare, and many more applications could find use of Koala.

The SoC supports IoT modem with integrated baseband and radio, an application processor, and GPS functionality for location tracking.

IITH and WiSig networks (WiSig), a 5G startup incubated in iTIC (IITH Technology Incubator) and FabCI (Fabless Chip Design Incubator), a MEITY funded incubator at IITH collaborated in the successful development of Koala, India’s first 5G cellular chipset. Cyient backed it with the semiconductor design.

Prof. B.S. Murty, Director, IITH, said, “I am delighted that Koala SoC, which has been jointly developed by IITH and WiSig. I applaud Prof. Kiran Kuchi and thank DoT for the 5G Testbed project and MEITY for the FabCI incubator. Koala fulfils the objective of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and has wide-ranging 5G applications.”

Source : The Hindu Business Line