Russian Electronics: Semiconductor and Processors

Moscow. July 24. INTERFAX. Minpromtorg Russia considers it inappropriate government support once the two projects "Angstrema and AFK Sistema (RTS: AFKS) (" Micron ") for the production of semiconductor components of the size of 90 nanometers (0.09 microns) and is preparing its association, said in an interview" Interfax Deputy Ministry Yuri Borisov.

He said at this stage of the project "Micron" for the production of 0.09 micron chips actually run, but to implement "Angstrema" long, which could lead to the fact that in 2011 Russia will receive two plants with identical process parameters, which will compete in the the same product niches.

"This volatility in a market of electronic components and downs of his volumes as expected. It is sensible to make these two projects on time and technological standards. For example, a focus on the development of technology for 0.09 micron and the second to put the future of 0.09. Now, We have received instructions from the Government of the Russian Federation to prepare a proposal on the possibility of microelectronic production ", - said Yuri Borisov, noting that the merger be carried out within a single legal entity.

"The - the process difficult, because the existing two projects are private companies - Sistema group companies, and" angstrom ", but both projects are credited to VEBe, supported through the implementation of federal target programs, so the state is not an outside observer, but serious player who can contribute to this association, "- noted the deputy minister.

According to him, not excluding the option that the first stage, the State will be the dominant owner, but after some time, will offer minority shareholders the option to repurchase.

"The situation is not hopeless, we are in contact with the owners, discussing the various scenarios for. I believe that the association needs to hold a maximum comfort for all parties", - said Deputy Minister.

As the "Interfax" the press service of "SITRONICS" (RTS: SITR), a draft "Micron" on 0.09 micron already received the support of the supervisory board "Rosnano and developed independently. "We see the markets in which our products will be in demand, and have experience working on them." Micron "is the absolute leader of Russian Microelectronics, therefore, quite logically, if the consolidation of the industry will be around," - explained in the company.

Zamgendirektora "Angstrema Eugene Kolosova told Interfax that the whole company is not opposed to unification, but finds it necessary to give first attention to technology and product line. "First of all, we have to talk about the market and products for niche and demand, and only then we can start to explore the organizational and legal issues" - she said.

As reported, "SITRONICS" and goskorporatsiya "Rosnano" will invest 16.5 billion rubles in the project to establish the production of integrated circuits topological size of 90 nanometers (0.09 microns). The project will create a project company, the share of "Rosnano" which amount to 49%

"Rosnano" invest in the project 6.5 billion rubles. "SITRONICS" pay their share of the project company's capital equipment for production of chips at the plant "Micron", which is estimated to cost 6,5-7 billion rubles. The remaining 3-3,5 billion rubles of the parties to attract. This may be bank loans or financing from the Sistema "- the parent company" SITRONICS "- told a source close to the project.

The Supervisory Board "Rosnano" approved participation in the project "SITRONICS" in early July. The next step is to sign an investment agreement, which will specify detailed parameters of the project and the capital structure of future joint ventures.

Series production is planned for launch in late 2011 - early 2012. 0.09 micron chips can be used in industrial electronics, auto electronics, digital television, navigation systems GLONASS / GPS. It also planned to produce chips with enhanced functionality for biometric passports and other personal documents, banking and social cards, SIM-cards and RFID-tags.

At the present time "SITRONICS" is already in Zelenograd manufacture chips on 0.18 micron technology.

Also, the application of "Rosnano" to finance a project to produce 0.09 micron chips, and filed a major competitor "SITRONICS" - OJSC "angstrom-T." Scientific and Technical Council on 23 June goskorporatsii recognized project Angstrema "relevant international scientific and technical level and recommended that the supervisory board" Rosnano "to decide on its financing.

"Angstrom-T's plans in 2011 in Zelenograd to organize the production of semiconductor components to the 0.09 micron, and the necessary investment in the project are about 190 million euros.

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Is this to the Elbrus processors? Or are they coming out with a more open market processor? The Elbrus are amazing processors and Russia should market them to countries and universities who cannot afford the IBM/Sun counterpart, but still have an effective super computer.

Russia has actually a very good tech industry. Problem is though, their PR sector is bad, and you barely even see their products anywhere.

sepheronx wrote:Is this to the Elbrus processors? Or are they coming out with a more open market processor? The Elbrus are amazing processors and Russia should market them to countries and universities who cannot afford the IBM/Sun counterpart, but still have an effective super computer.

Russia has actually a very good tech industry. Problem is though, their PR sector is bad, and you barely even see their products anywhere.

For military applications this is initially for GLONASS chips. It will also be applied to AESA T/R modules. The Irbis is at the final stage of PESA development so look for AESA radars to quickly fill the incoming Su-35BM fleet.

.9nm when the West is at .64/.32 microns... we need to get with the program.

64nm? More like 45nm. As for west, mostly just Israel and USA, as Germany is stuck with 90nm for a lot of the AMD fabrication facilities.

This is a step in the right direction. If Russia invests more and more into microcomputer technology, then soon enough they will have 45nm and such.

Rosneft is making the transition to the 64nm waffers. Look around 2011 for it to come out.

hmm any news on Russian progress in producing... HEMT (High Electron Mobility Transistor) made of GaN (Gallium Nitride) ? ..as far as i know currently Russia is capable of producing Gallium Arsenide modules for AESA RADARS

Russian electronics are crap. When was the last time you bought Russian computer, TV, or anything? Turkey makes all this advanced and ships it to Europe, the most demanding technology customers.

Stealthflanker wrote:hmm any news on Russian progress in producing... HEMT (High Electron Mobility Transistor) made of GaN (Gallium Nitride) ? ..as far as i know currently Russia is capable of producing Gallium Arsenide modules for AESA RADARS

Phazotron contracted with NPF Mikran, a semiconductor manufacturer, with support from the Tomsk Electronics University, to develop the Gallium Arsenide MMIC (Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits) technology for the Zhuk's T/R Modules.

Turk1 wrote:Russian electronics are crap. When was the last time you bought Russian computer, TV, or anything? Turkey makes all this advanced and ships it to Europe, the most demanding technology customers.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH. That was a real good joke. Hmm let me guess, They got far better Fabrication facilities then Russia? Then why does Russia build Super Computers and Turkey buys it from other countries? Why does Russia have an AI technology that is used in SU-34 aircrafts and not found in a lot of western tech? How come Elbrus makes advanced microprocessors that where comparable to the IBM quality?

I would like to see what your response is.

BTW, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) has a fabrication facility in Russia. My guess is that your AMD processors come from Russia.

One last thing stupid. TV's and such that are manufactured in Russia are from countries like Korea, China and various other ones.

The reason why you do not see the products that often are because either the microprocessors themselves are manufactured in Russia and or because it is limited to which countries they deal with as their PR sucks, not the product.

RBC daily: Rosnano will release microchips coupled with a major competitor to Intel
25.08.2009

Russia goskorporatsiya Rosnano is negotiating with the U.S. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which is the main competitor of Intel processor hardware on the market, to create a joint venture to produce chips on 65 nm ultra-modern technology for next-generation mobile phones. While the most advanced in Russia remains a project Rosnano "and" Sitronics "on the planned production of chips on 90 nm technology, which is less modern. Rosnano may invest in joint venture with AMD up to 500 million dollars. In Russia there is no demand for such devices, but the chips for new smartphones - a very large market, say experts interviewed by RBC daily.

AMD - an American company working in the field of microelectronics, specializing in the production of chips for computers. Income AMD in the second quarter of 2009 decreased by 13%, to 1.184 billion dollars, net loss reached $ 330 million

Rosnano may invest in the project to 500 million dollars, told RBC daily top manager of one of Russia's companies working in the field of microelectronics. A source close to Rosnano, confirmed the edition that talks with AMD about the joint production of chips are maintained, but declined to disclose details. According to another source for IT-market, in an amount of investment negotiations Rosnano "in" several hundred million dollars. Where will set a possible production has not been decided. "Various options. Production can be created in Russia, abroad or set up abroad, and then transferred to Russia. In any case, the power, on the basis of which it is possible to deploy such a production in Russia has no" - the source added.

"With AMD representatives" Rosnano actually met during the visit of Anatoly Chubais, head of state corporations in the United States. We are considering all the interesting projects with the use of nanotechnology, "- the press service Rosnano." The head of Russia's Alexander Belenky AMD representative confirmed that a meeting of representatives Rosnano and AMD, however, to comment on the negotiations, the companies abstained.

According to the strategy Rosnano ", state corporation may establish such projects only in conjunction with one of Russia's commercial companies. In Russia, only two similar production - Zelenograd "Micron", and "Angstrom", and who can become a partner Rosnano is not yet known. "Angstrom, the profile is closer to such a project, since the very beginning, even when the USSR was developing chips of this nature. "Micron" is more focused on the production of microelectronic components and power supplies RFID-chips, such as transport, "- says one source. The press service of" Sitronics "reported that the negotiations do not lead to AMD. Contact with the" Angstrom "newspaper failed.

"The demand for such products would definitely, chips for smart phones - very comprehensive segment. Within five years, most cell phones, will grow wiser, the smartphone segment is growing at 20-25% annually in the world. The main consumers of chips - the manufacturers of mobile phones in Asia and Europe. This project could become the most commercially successful of all the projects Rosnano, if we can start production within three years, until the technology is relevant, "- says the analyst of" Finam "Anna Zaitseva.

With the joint venture will invest in AMD, not yet determined. "It can be either technology, or some know-how for future development", - considers the source of RBC daily on IT-market. The likelihood of such a project depends on whether "Rosnano find the necessary funds. "AMD has put forward are too stringent requirements for the project. The development of such a chip in the average cost 100-150 million dollars", - said one of the sources of RBC daily. "The cost of developing the chip is much less than the creation of the production process, which, in particular, requires good engineering infrastructures. Total cost of the project in such a case can grow to several billion dollars", - says another source.

Rosnano "received from the budget of 130 billion rubles in November 2007. However, in August this year, it was decided to withhold the funds of a number of state corporations. In particular, Rosnano in December, should pass a federal budget of 85 billion rubles. It is expected that these funds will be returned to the Corporation in 2010-2012, respectively. August 19 Chapter Rosnano Anatoly Chubais announced his intention to issue its bonds in late 2009 - early 2010 with the condition under which the provision of government guarantees. The issue amount is not yet defined, it will form the basis of the needs of the state corporation for funds for investment in nanotech projects.

"Market for such products in Russia, no, because there is no domestic production of mobile phones. Thus, all the products the joint venture could only be exported. An individual company is difficult to pull on the background of crisis such projects, so logically they are looking for outside investors. Russia now looks attractive for Western investors in such projects "- one expert in the IT-market. "We should not forget that Russia has already had experience in manufacturing mobile phones, albeit not very good. Nobody prevents to resume production. Plus, these chips can be supplied to vendors who produce phones for our operators. The direction is favorable, although more than a reasonable amount of investment Rosnano in this joint venture could be valued in 250-300 million dollars ", - considers the executive director of Direct Info Alexey Kondrashov.

Russia tries to get into microelectronics and other means. The government is negotiating with Germany about investing in chip manufacturer Infineon. In Russia as a partner for joint venture may make the same "Micron" or "Angstrom."

"Rosnano money back, previously selected in the budget - 85 billion rubles

Note that last week it was announced that another major project Rosnano. State corporation intends to invest 250 million dollars in a joint project with Renova billionaire Viktor Vekselberg. The companies plan to produce solar cells in Europe.

Clearly, a new impetus to the conclusion of large contracts given to including Last week's meeting of the head Rosnano Anatoly Chubais with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, during which the head of Russia's Cabinet said that now is the time to invest in high technology. Chubais himself told that the abolition of state-owned corporations in Russia seriously discussed.

Also added that on August 7, Dmitry Medvedev instructed Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika and head of its supervisory control to Konstantin Chuichenko until 10 November to conduct audits of state corporations and to submit proposals on whether further use of the organizational-legal form.

In the near future the Government is determined to schedule a return to the authorized capital "Rosnano 85 billion rubles, previously transferred to the budget, the head of Ministry of Education Minister Andrei Fursenko.

It is about 85 billion rubles, which were removed from the authorized capital of the state corporation in the year. As explained by Anatoly Chubais, the reimbursement of these funds will occur within three years. Initially, the authorized capital of the state corporation was made to 130 billion rubles, and then in 2009, about 85 billion were returned to the budget.

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Isn't Rusnano a non-profit organization that provides government funds to developing companies and or companies in general for future projects? And second, is this for AMD to develop the 65NM FAB facilities? Or does Russia already have it, but require companies in the know how to design the CPU's?

And as for mobile phone......I don't quite understand. Me knowing processors and computer technology quite well (Was doing programming (stopped) and had my own company in high school in building and selling PC's as well as maintaining it), never really heard of a mobile cell phone AMD CPU. But never the less, it is a great move by Russia. In doing so, will this try to make the transition of the Elbrus processors to 65nm or less (now that the world is in 45nm and soon to be less)? Which company makes these Russian CPU's for the super computers?

And if you do not mind Vlad (since you know Russia a lot better then me), what processor development companies are in Russia currently? and what are their products?

A multi-core processor for the army


Artem Kuybida

­­The Ministry of Industry and Trade has opened a bid for the creation of a powerful multi-core microprocessor for 760 million rubles. The project has become part of the Federal Target Program No.1 “Development of weapons” based on the government decree “On changes to the government defense order for 2011 and scheduled period between 2012 and 2013.”

According to the client, the peak performance of one microprocessor should be at least 150 Gflops (which means having the ability to perform 150 billion tasks a second). This performance is achieved by using 8 to 12 cores. The national operating system, Elbrus, will be used to manage the computers created based on these processors.

The microprocessor is being developed mainly to be used with detecting devices, both radar and sonar. There are also plans to use it in computer systems for the simulation of new generation weapons.

The future developer’s profit has been outlined in the technical assignment at 15%, which amounts to 98.8 million rubles.

“It will be an incredibly high-tech supercomputer,” says Andrey Mitrofanov, spokesman for T-platforms. “Processing capacity of 150 Gflops is not a bad indicator.”

“The computational nodes we use support this performance level and even higher, but it is attained with several microprocessors. In this case, we are talking about getting the same result from just one microprocessor. Meanwhile, the final version of the device could have dozens of such processors,” continues Mitrofanov.

Among Russian supercomputers, the Lomonosov has set the world record for performance. It was created at the Research Computer Center of Moscow State University and has total capacity of 1373.06 Tflops (able to perform 1.373 trillion tasks a second) – a result that can be achieved by using 33,072 cores.

In Russia’s industrial sector, all supercomputers are divided into two categories. Those in the first category are able to lead to the production of something new and groundbreaking. For example, drugs against cancer and HIV are being simulated on a supercomputer at MSU. Other supercomputers ensure practical developments for large companies. They are used to conduct high-priority exploration of natural resources like ore deposits and oil and gas fields.

This requires the creation of a machine capable of supporting the work of high-tech equipment.

“Things that before took decades or years to complete can now be done in a month to six months by using a supercomputer. All the new models always undergo computer simulation first,” says Mitrofanov. “Using supercomputers before going to develop new offshore deposits reduces costs by tens and even hundreds of times, as in the very beginning, there is an active exploration process, which makes it possible to not only cut costs, but also the research time.”

In the aircraft industry, the use of supercomputers allows such giants as Boeing and Sukhoi to avoid building dozens of test models and instead create a 3D model, correcting it throughout the experiments, says Mitrofanov. As a result, research and design work is optimized, and the time and price of the work becomes significantly reduced.

Ministry of Industry and Trade representatives were unable to comment on the order for the development of the super-microprocessor in a timely manner. Nevertheless, the ministry’s technical assignment reads that after testing and design works are complete, the demand for the device will amount to 1,000 units in the first year. In the third year after the completion of work, the demand will be 100,000 units. The price of a mass-produced microprocessor should amount to no more than 9,000 rubles.

Seems like they are spending the money to develop their own processor chips.
I hope they expand the use beyond the military and also develop them for consumer devices as the increase in production numbers and wider electronic base will make the chips cheaper and more attractive.
They have had lots of dealings with AMD... it would make a lot of sense if they make their new CPUs compatible with AM3+ slots as used by the current AMD chips so the new chips can be used on existing hardware.

@ Austin

This is a great example on how US is going to try to stunt growth of Russia:

http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2013-06-07/podcast:_t-platforms_ceo_responds_to_us_blacklist_dell_boxes_up_hpc_for_life_sciences.html?adclass=isc13

and Putins comments:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/05/02/1619237/putin-reportedly-comments-on-t-platform-supercomputer-flap

This is a prime example as to why just "importing" technology is bad for future development, and why I think that both Irkutsk and Sukhoi are very short sighted in their development of the SSJ and MS-21, as they are expecting to be able to play the game fairly, even in the WTO. But the joke of all of this is, since Russia got into the WTO, a Russian company gets black listed. How fair is that?

This is just one reason as to why WTO was a stupid idea, and that it is overall bad for Russia's development. Since joining WTO, investments from abroad dropped, only few co-development plans were put into motion, and as well, company gets black listed. I hope Russian gov has some sort of contingency plan.

Indeed as far as T Platforms goes this is bad news for business , If they dont get access to US technology since major CPU manuf is from US they wont survive with it.

Unfair competition True but thats the Advantage US has being a monopoly it can add any organisation in Black List depending on its Whims and Fancies.

Austin wrote:Indeed as far as T Platforms goes this is bad news for business , If  they dont get access to US technology since major CPU manuf is from US they wont survive with it.

Unfair competition True  but thats the Advantage US has being a monopoly it can add any organisation in Black List depending on its Whims and Fancies.

This is why I think Russian government needs to put more emphasis on Elbrus 4C development and then quickly push for Elbrus 8C, then development on scaling them better for cluster systems. Only so far, Ministry of Business and Industry put funds and emphasis on Elbrus-4C development. There is already 65nm lithography technology in Russia, they need to tie it into MCST at least for its development, as well as get MCST or some other company to really put out the Linux OS MSMS to work well with Elbrus processor and its scaling. This combination could save Russia's industry a WHOLE heap of trouble.

This should raise a serious Alarm Bell in Russia , what the US is trying to do is to nip the flower in the bud so that companies T Platforms dont become serious players to established HPC manufacturers in US.

Ofcourse they can change name or open a subsidary and can import from US but that would be a short term measure.

In the commercial world i really do not know any body outside US that makes processor on commercial scale , Intel , AMD , IBM Power Processor , Oracle SPARC are all US companies .....there is one Japanese companies that makes SPARC but US would even pressurise it as well.

I really do not know how good Elbrus processor is compared to say Power 7 or SPARC but even if its half as good they better start development , perhaps in a decades time US might ban sale of high end processor or HPC to Russian Universities or State Institutions.

Austin wrote:This should raise a serious Alarm Bell in Russia , what the US is trying to do is to nip the flower in the bud so that companies T Platforms dont become serious players to established HPC manufacturers in US.

Ofcourse they can change name or open a subsidary and can import from US but that would be a short term measure.

In the commercial world i really do not know any body outside US that makes processor on commercial scale , Intel , AMD , IBM Power Processor , Oracle SPARC are all US companies .....there is one Japanese companies that makes SPARC but US would even pressurise it as well.

I really do not know how good Elbrus  processor is compared to say Power 7 or SPARC but even if its half as good they better start development , perhaps in a decades time US might ban sale of high end processor or HPC to Russian Universities or State Institutions.

 
Elbrus processors are just a line through MCST, but have different setups.  For instance, Elbrus R500 and R1000 are SPARC based micorprocessors, while Elbrus 2C+ and soon 4C and 8C are: a 2 core, 4 core and 8 core x86 microprocessors, similar to that of AMD and Intel in some sense.  Issue is, that they do not have rights to newer instruction sets like SSE4 that is on AMD or Intel, because of copyright laws.  Elbrus R1000 is used mostly for military technology as SPARC processors are great number crunchers and for basic tasks.  The Elbrus-2C+, which I believe is for the PAK FA radar (not entirely 100% sure, if it is either radar or its onboard computers) is an x86 processor that, not as fast or a computational cruncher like the R1000 is, it is very resourceful in power consumption, as well it works in conjunction with 4 DSP cores (Elvees) that DSP cores in order to analyze radar information in real time.  Elbrus-2C+ is being worked on as a test bench with a company called Kraftway in making computers for the civil market.  But the Elbrus 2C carries the DSP cores which are pointelss for everyday desktop tasks, thus they are working on a 2 core one as in itself, and a quad core one (future is 8 core apparently).
 
Wiki on Elbrus
 
Elbrus R1000 SPARC 4 Core Processor
 
Problem with SPARC processors is that they are not scalable as well as x86, as well as with their instruction sets, majority of it is outdated and Oracle is no longer working on them (used to be Sun microdevices).
 
But over the years (in the past) there was not a huge push for development of MCST processors in the domestic market, and they just did some work here and there on their own x86 processor (MCST made the move themselves) while the MoD pushed for the R1000 due to it being just more powerful in raw performance, but using older tech.  Now the ministry of manufacturing/industrial is pushing for Elbrus-4C's development as it is going to be very important in the future for them to be competitive, especially in the server side of things.

some info on elbrus 4c

MCST website If you read through their news, you will find some tidbit info on Elbrus-4C. Ill try to dig some up later.

I think it would be wrong to say SPARC architecture is not scalable as Oracle who bought SUN Microsystem and Fujitsu is putting its money on SPARC development.

As far as Elbrus-4C goes and future development i found something

http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2008-07-01/russia_revives_home-grown_computers.html

Not bad for a 130nm processor, especially the 2.5 gigaflops/watt metric -- although based on the Elbrus Wikipedia entry, I'm fairly sure they're talking 32-bit floating point precision here. Kim said MCST's future plans call for an 8 gigaflop Elbrus-1C (at 90nm) in 2009; a 64 gigaflop Elbrus-4C (at 65nm) in 2012, and a 1 teraflop Elbrus-16C (at 32nm) in 2018.

http://eng.cnews.ru/news/top/indexEn.shtml?2008/06/30/306828

The production of Elbrus-3 was supervised by Babayan and it was meant to become one of the first computers with superscalar architecture in the world. However the project was scrapped in early 90s due to the lack of finance. Later the idea of Elbrus-3 was used during Elbrus 2000 and Elbrus-3M engineering in the Moscow SPARC-technologies Center, known as MCST. Boris Babayan who is now Intel’s honored research and development engineer of the Software and Solutions Group division, is still supervising the project.

Alexander Kim said the Elbrus-3M processor is an entirely Russian development. It is based on a a 130-nm layout and has 75,8m transistors on 189 mm2. MSCT didn’t say who exactly produced the processors. There is currently no equipment in Russia for making 130-nm micro schemes, the first line of it will be launched in late 2009.

Kim said the processor’s main advantages are its compatibility with the x86 architecture, its superscalarity (it allows processing up to 23 instruction at a time) and the extremely low power demand of 0,4 Watt/Gigaflops. The engineers say when processing real instructions Elbrus proves a productivity level close to peak performance. During matrix multiplication Elbrus-3M demonstrates 4,7 Gigaflops – 98% of the 4,8 peak performance.

MCST intends to develop the Elbrus line following Moore’s law by doubling the number of crystal’s transistors every two years. Alexander Kim told CNews MCST is planning the production of Elbrus-1C with the productivity of 8Gigaflops which will be based on the 90-nm technology in 2009; 2012 will see the 64 gigaflops Elbrus-4C based on the 65-nm technology, and in 2018 it will create the 1Tflops Elbrus-16C based on the 32-nm technology.

Interestingly, MCST do not want to say who the customers are to receive the first 100 computers based on Elbrus-3M processors, but noted that they will be used in anti-missile and air defense, as well as in cryptographic calculations for secret services.

Well, China proved many wrong in the sense of their recent microprocessor for some of their super computers (I think it made top 500) that used a domestic SPARC processor.
 
Elbrus R1000 still has lots of potential, as it is a quad core, 1ghz microprocessors.  If they increased the core speed, increased memory while decreasing bandwidth, and lower the lithography to the 65nm technology they have now, I bet it would make one hell of an awesome server based processor, especially in HPC field.  Last time I played around with Oracle OS, I found it was quite easy to use and works very well with any SPARC processors, especially using SPARC 9 (which R1000 uses).  There is still potential, but apparently, x86 are much more efficient in scalability and work much better in various server enviornments, as most new server enviornments are based off of windows server 2003 - 2008, and various instruction sets add better performance and scalability with intercommunications.
 
SPARC 9 is the last one (which I have heard), and many are moving to x86 and even talk of ARM.
 
Funny thing, Fujitsu has actually contracted module for their NeuronMatrix technology (DSP).
 
Great article on Russian Chip Makers

Austin wrote:http://eng.cnews.ru/news/top/indexEn.shtml?2008/06/30/306828

The production of Elbrus-3 was supervised by Babayan and it was meant to become one of the first computers with superscalar architecture in the world. However the project was scrapped in early 90s due to the lack of finance. Later the idea of Elbrus-3 was used during Elbrus 2000 and Elbrus-3M engineering in the Moscow SPARC-technologies Center, known as MCST. Boris Babayan who is now Intel’s honored research and development engineer of the Software and Solutions Group division, is still supervising the project.

Alexander Kim said the Elbrus-3M processor is an entirely Russian development. It is based on a a 130-nm layout and has 75,8m transistors on 189 mm2. MSCT didn’t say who exactly produced the processors. There is currently no equipment in Russia for making 130-nm micro schemes, the first line of it will be launched in late 2009.

Kim said the processor’s main advantages are its compatibility with the x86 architecture, its superscalarity (it allows processing up to 23 instruction at a time) and the extremely low power demand of 0,4 Watt/Gigaflops. The engineers say when processing real instructions Elbrus proves a productivity level close to peak performance. During matrix multiplication Elbrus-3M demonstrates 4,7 Gigaflops – 98% of the 4,8 peak performance.

MCST intends to develop the Elbrus line following Moore’s law by doubling the number of crystal’s transistors every two years. Alexander Kim told CNews MCST is planning the production of Elbrus-1C with the productivity of 8Gigaflops which will be based on the 90-nm technology in 2009; 2012 will see the 64 gigaflops Elbrus-4C based on the 65-nm technology, and in 2018 it will create the 1Tflops Elbrus-16C based on the 32-nm technology.

Interestingly, MCST do not want to say who the customers are to receive the first 100 computers based on Elbrus-3M processors, but noted that they will be used in anti-missile and air defense, as well as in cryptographic calculations for secret services.

That article is old though, but does induldge in some interesting information. Elbrus-4C isn't out yet, as they are still working on it, and only recently was given attention to (since the push for a public sale of the Elbrus-2C+), and we may see Elbrus-4C later this year or next year. Elbrus-8C is supposed to be next afterwards, which wont appear till at least 2016 or later. There is only now interest in its developments, while Elbrus lines where pretty much rarely mentioned (it was only recently have I even heard of R1000, even though its been a while since it was out). So Russia definately has the technology to produce it, especially since they already produce under 90nm technology and have 65nm lithography already (apparently my mention of Technopolis GS in Kaliningrad region has the technology).

MCST website has various news regarding Elbrus 4C at various meetings.

As expected from the U.S, anything to "protect" there precious electronics industry from the big bad Russian bear.  

Anyway the slashdot article posted by sepheronx is a bit odd:
Nerval's Lobster writes "In March, the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security added T-Platforms' businesses in Germany, Russia and Taiwan to the 'Entity List,' which includes those believed to be acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. Commerce felt, according to the notice, that T-Platforms may be illegally assisting the Russian military and/or its nuclear program. In the meantime, Russian president Vladimir Putin has reportedly weighed in on the T-Platforms question. 'That's right. The use of political levers for unfair competition,' Putin said, according to RBTH.ru. 'Our European colleagues are independent people and they claim they want to work with us in certain spheres, yet they act as though they are absolutely dependent and unable to make their own decision. Is that so?' It's odd that Putin was quoted talking about 'European colleagues' when the Americans were responsible for cutting T-Platforms off.

I feel that in the future, countries that do not have there own domestic military/electronics industry at least on some level, will have to import there defense equipment more so then now, i guess what i am trying to say is that eventually the exporting country will decide that they will have software and hardware backdoors to literally be able to shuts down all said country's defense systems if they deem it necessary (like in Battlestar Galactica), is this a realistic look at the future or am i getting paranoid??

Shutting down the equipment would be really hard, in the aspect that the equipment using said components would need to let off some sort of signal that can be connected to and then able to send commands to. You could always "inject" commands through transmitting that could also shut down said equipment, especially if a back door is implemented. There was a reason why Russia is very adamant about using domestic built digital radio systems in recent times, and why they are pushing for development of constellation (the C&C system) for Russia - because of their experience of the Motorola radio systems being shut off or dealt with, during the 080808 war.

Besides some components that are used from Taiwan, majority of key equipment use Russian made electronics, like microprocessors, DSP's, controllers, etc etc. But not so mandatory stuff use open commercial products because they are deemed useful and cheap for what they are intended for, and not really in fear of being used against Russia if in case a major war broke. The Russian goods are specialized and are not necessarily best for all tasks, as they are indeed specialized and in other tasks, are deemed "slow" and not as competitive, hence why they use some outside components (especially in semiconductor industry). They have a military laptop using the Elbrus R1000 processor:





Doesn't seem like much, but a 4 core R1000 at 1ghz is quite a powerful laptop, especially when it is being used for a specific task like telecommunication software and such (battle management, etc). As well, these processors are more or less aimed at dealing against lots of radiation, thus they can sustain electronic warfare pretty decently (supposedly). Although, all solid state components are open to attacks a lot easier than vacuum tube or cathode ray.

These may not seem like much, but believe me, in the past couple of years, MCST was barely functional with only some projects here and there, with some sales here and there from MoD for specific components. Now, they are getting orders like crazy, and huge amounts of money is being spent on 4C+ development from the industry, as well as military (Since Elbrus 2C+ is being used for PAK FA's AESA radar).

Where are Elbrus-2C+ manufactured some one at BRF mentioned it was being done at Taiwan , Does Russia has any manufacturing base locally or are they all manufactured in Taiwan

Austin wrote:Where are  Elbrus-2C+ manufactured some one at BRF mentioned it was being done at Taiwan , Does Russia has any manufacturing base locally or are they all manufactured in Taiwan

 
I believe Russia has a low rate FAB in Kaliningrad region for 130nm and 90nm production of Elbrus processors (2C+, R1000, etc), but high rate production is done in Taiwan.  They got other fab facilities but those are mainly used for other things like RISC processors (KOMDIV-32/64), Elvees and Module.  I don't know exactly about the other ones (like the facility in Technopolis GS), but there are various fab facilities for various size of modules.  I think they have a 300nm FAB facility still (unless they dismantled it).
 
Taiwan build 65nm en mass for Elbrus processors, when Russia only has a couple of facilities for 65nm lithography, and I believe they are for various other things (I think Elvees or Module has one).

MCST themselves are a fabless processor maker. In other words, they have equipment to build test units and to design new ones, but they contract others to build them. Much like AMD does.