New Delhi: Researchers from IIIT Hyderabad are developing indigenous electronics, including custom chips and millimetre wave circuits to support remote sensing and intelligent healthcare systems that preserve privacy, among India’s push to advance semiconductor capabilities. The work follows a vertical integration approach across the full electronics stack, combining integrated circuits, signal processing and system-level applications rather than treating each separately. Application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) are designed for strategic areas where off-the-shelf hardware limits performance. The approach allows for better flexibility, precision and energy efficiency in healthcare monitoring, privacy-focused sensing, space missions and national infrastructure. These chips evolve based on real-world deployment feedback, with circuit decisions directly improving overall system outcomes.

A key focus is millimetre-wave radar sensing, which operates reliably in low light and in all-weather conditions, including fog, rain and dust, while maintaining privacy unlike camera-based systems. It detects motion, distance and subtle vibrations such as chest movements during breathing by transmitting and receiving high-frequency signals. This tech has been used in the automotive sector, but not so much in the healthcare sector. The contactless hardware can be used to measure heart rate and respiration without the use of wearables or cameras, making them suitable for infectious disease wards, elderly care and post-operative monitoring. Custom electronics, signal processing and edge AI can extract vital signs from faint radar reflections. Clinical trials are underway, with hospital deployments being planned to assess performance.

Tech can be used in smart cities

For road safety and urban monitoring, the radar technology detects and classifies vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists accurately with low latency in adverse weather conditions. It supports traffic planning, accident analysis and smart city governance, without the risks of surveillance. The designs are refined through a continuous feedback loop, with field testing revealing issues such as signal interference or noise, leading to innovations such as programmable frequency-modulated radar generators, low-noise oscillators and high-linearity receiver circuits optimised for actual needs.

The supporting infrastructure includes high-frequency measurement capabilities up to 44 GHz, rare in India, along with the institute’s first in-house chip tape-out and access to advanced design tools. The efforts are producing patents, publications and technology transfers, emphasising strategic custom silicon where it delivers the most impact in application-driven innovation.