With Apple including NavIC, the homegrown global positioning system (GPS), in some of the new iPhone 15 models, the government plans to make the NavIC-powered chip mandatory in devices and cars, minister of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Thursday.
The minister said that if the government considers smartphone production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme 2.0, then the use of NavIC and other Indian-designed components could be mandated with some kind of incentives thrown in for the same. Under the IT Hardware PLI, the government is already providing incentives to manufacturers who incorporate Indian-designed or Indian-manufactured chips and use any homegrown components.
“It is conceivable that in future, the chips that power mobile devices will be NavIC chips,” Chandrasekhar said, adding that it will be made almost mandatory that all the devices that use GPS use the NavIC chipsets.
In the automotive sector, since there is a NavIC chip that is available, Chandrasekhar said there are sufficient reasons to mandate that the trackers in India be powered by it.
This is the first time Apple has added support for NavIC to any of its iPhone models, for which the chip is designed by Qualcomm. Currently, several smartphone companies like Poco, Vivo and Xiaomi support NavIC in their smartphones.
“The idea today is increasing the capability we have in India and certainly start pushing the platforms to incorporate this,” Chandrasekhar said, adding that with NavIC, developers will get the choice to choose from several GPS systems available.
Developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), NavIC is an independent stand-alone navigation satellite system just like global systems like US-owned GPS, Russia’s GLONASS, China’s BeiDou and Galileo by the European Union. The NavIC consists of eight satellites and covers the whole of India’s landmass and extends to neighbouring areas, including the Indian Ocean.
Chandrasekhar also mentioned Accord Software & Solutions, a chip-design startup, which is the first Indian company to design NavIC chips. According to the minister, the company has already manufactured over 1 million NavIC chips in 28 nanometers, through semiconductor manufacturing company GlobalFoundries.
