A top DRDO official, however, said the responsibility of ascertaining whether an item needs license or not rests with the company. In this case, ADE is said to have floated a global tender as the i960 microprocessors are out of production. Cirrus bid, won the contract and identified Rochester Electronics as one of the companies that has license from Intel to manufacture this item. “Of course, we lay a condition to a test by DRDO officials before the item is purchased,” said the official. It is one of the jobs of the DRDO representatives in the Indian mission to observe these tests and clear the item for purchase. Now if the company violates any law, DRDO officials claim, they cannot be held responsible.

Further, officials say, these microprocessors are, perhaps, part of the fly-by-wire flight control mechanism for which the ADE had reached an understanding with Lockheed Martin over a decade ago. This was to become part of the LCA. But this cooperation came to an abrupt end in the wake of sanctions following the 1998 nuclear tests and ADE is now trying to complete it through indigenous efforts.