MumbaiSemi builds the receiver chip that lets a device use India's navigation satellites
The IIT Bombay spinout designs a single radio chip that tunes to NavIC, GPS, Galileo and BeiDou.
MumbaiSemi, a semiconductor startup founded in 2024, has developed a receiver chip that enables devices to utilize India's satellite navigation system, NavIC. The company's founders, Dr Vijay Kanchetla and Prof Rajesh Zele, both of whom are affiliated with IIT Bombay, have spent years working on the problem. NavIC, operated by India's space agency ISRO, covers the country and its surrounding region, providing a self-reliant positioning system.
The challenge, however, lies not in the satellites, but in the chips required to receive and process their signals. Historically, most devices could pick up GPS signals but not NavIC due to the lack of commercial receivers supporting it. MumbaiSemi aimed to fill this gap commercially.
The company's technology, initially a research project called Dhruva, was developed in 18 months and is the first of its kind designed entirely by students. The chip is programmable across the bands used by NavIC, GPS, Galileo, and BeiDou, eliminating the need for multiple chips or hardware changes. It amplifies the faint satellite signals roughly 400,000 times and converts them to digital on the same chip.
MumbaiSemi's commercial product, the DhruvaPro, is a silicon-proven chip, meaning it is fabricated and tested rather than simulated. The startup holds two patents for its design. This compact, cost-effective solution allows device manufacturers to include NavIC support in their products without the previously required multiple chips or hardware changes.
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