Russian Electronics: Semiconductor and Processors

kvs wrote:

People always underestimate the scientific and engineering depth of Russia.

well it takes more than having the technology tho. The main concern is building such facility can take a while, also unless heavily subsidized the chip will be very expensive. The "west" drive this down by going commercial route with large market demands which dropped the price and effectively "subsidizing" their military chip line.

Market in Russia must be large to do such, OR somehow it can get India and Chinese market too.

not my area of expertise - as I say often

but it seems Japan dropped out of the CPU end production business back in the 1980s?
apparently because the loss of revenue from South Korean and China consumer electronics destroying the cashflow of Japanese electronics companies to invest in foundries

but a by-product of this former glory is they now seem to be a key supplier of many of these gases and lithographic materials etc
so instead they morphed into a component supplier

I remember when Japan and South Korea had one of their routine mutual dummyspits and Japan refused to send gases to them
and I think Russia offered the fluoro- type gas to Korea instead instead ....

found it .... August 2019

"South Korea and Japan are embroiled in a bitter trade war that could have consequences for a global economy that is already suffering from another trade war between the US and China.

Last month, Japan announced it would tighten control over three chemicals — fluorinated polyamides, photoresists, and hydrogen fluoride — that are crucial to producing semiconductors in Korea.

Under new regulations, Japanese companies would need a license for each chemical to import them to South Korea, and the process could take up to 90 days."

.... and the really interesting bit ....

"16/7/2019 · Now we’re learning that South Korea might make up for the drop in Hydrogen Fluoride imports from Japan by importing the etching gas from Russia. "

interesting history ... that's for sure

and with mariupol in turmoil.. so does production of Neon which a byproduct from steelmaking. Russia and Ukraine alone apparently accounts for more than 50% global production. If Azovites can be cleared and normal life back to Mariupol then Russia will have large portion of Neon gas production. I think even Taiwan would want to negotiate.

They did import the gas from elsewhere than Japan. But the Russian gas did not have the required level of purity so the South Koreans had to make purification facilities. It is like I said, even if you have the material you might need a separate process to make it viable for semiconductor industry use.

As for CPUs Japan used to make their own consumer CPUs as late as in the early/mid 1990s. But as they lost the consumer market today Japan at best designs their own CPUs and outsources production to Taiwan. For example the best performing Japanese supercomputer, Fugaku, does use Japanese designed CPUs but they are made at TSMC in Taiwan. Just like everyone who isn't Intel.

"And where the wind blows can be determined by individual positive news. For example recently became known that the Russian University of Chemical Technology together with the company "Himmed/Chemmed" is currently engaged in the organization of the production of high-purity acids, which are necessary in microelectronics.

About 80% of raw materials and chemical reagents until recently were imported from the United States and the European Union. Now there is a certain deficit of them and the issue of import substitution is more acute than ever.
It is assumed that the annual turnover of production will be 10-12 tons of acids.

Import substitution and the rest of the clean chemistry are just around the corner."


Mr Electrobrain on Yandex .... again

"TSMC does not want to produce chips in the US, but will have to"

https://zen.yandex.ru/media/electromozg/tsmc-ne-hochet-vypuskat-chipy-v-ssha-no-pridetsia-62608617c8fad12a189a40d0?&

a lot of background stats and figures on Mikron

and new equipment ....
does seem weird to be talking openly about buying more equipment ?
prior to the event ?

https://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2022-04-22_rossijskij_chipmejker_1

The Russian "chipmaker No. 1" doubles production. Russian microelectronics will be given a new life
Mikron intends to double the volume of silicon wafers produced in the coming years in order to defeat the shortage of domestic semiconductors in Russia.
The plant will need 10 billion rubles. "Micron" intends to purchase used production equipment, which in recent years has become a standard world practice in this industry.

If those numbers are true that is a really low production rate. The article claims Mikron wants to expand from 3000 wafers per month to 6000.
It will be really tough for them to get that equipment. But probably not impossible. KrF lithography tools are basically obsolete.
The thing is, even if they get the tools, can they maintain them without parts and support from the vendor?
The article also claims Mikron manufactures mostly at 180-90nm which matches with what we know.

There is also the Angstrem-T plant i.e. NM-Tech. Should have similar production capabilities at 180-90nm. But maybe more production capacity? At least I hope so. And from what news we have they should have been in operation last year. God knows what they are actually producing.

These are some weird shenanigans. Massive financial fraud? But they did make products. Ordering a production run at TSMC isn't exactly cheap and that is assuming you paid for the design in the first place.

14.04.2022
Rostec bought a blocking stake in the developer of hardware on Baikal processors
Rostec State Corporation bought the blocking share of the developer of electronics on Baikal processors — the Edelweiss company. It is noteworthy that representatives of the electronic market associate this company with the founder of the supercomputer company "T-platforms" Vsevolod Opanasenko. He started working at Rostec at the end of March 2022. Sources believe that the state corporation plans to take control of the intellectual property of Edelweiss. We are talking about boards for Baikal-T and Baikal-M chips, as well as monoblocks on Baikal-M.

As CNews found out, Rostec State Corporation, through its subsidiaries, acquired a 25.1% share of the Russian electronics developer on Baikal processors, the Edelweiss company. This share, according to the company's statutory documents, is blocking. Accordingly, this will allow Rostec to veto certain decisions of the Edelweiss management. CNews wrote about the origin of these plans of Rostec in August 2021.

This purchase is noteworthy because many representatives of the electronic market do not doubt that the beneficiary of Edelweiss is the founder of the famous supercomputer company T-platforms Vsevolod Opanasenko, but there is no official confirmation of this information at the moment. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, since March 2014, Zinaida Pakhomenkova has been the sole founder of Edelweiss. In the market, none of the participants interviewed by CNews knows her. But according to two editorial sources familiar with Vsevolod Opanasenko's family, that's the name of his mother-in-law.

According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Rostec acquired shares in Edelweiss through NCI on April 5, 2022. It, in turn, belongs to JSC "United Instrument Corporation" (MIC, the management company of the holding "Roselectronics").

At the end of March 2022, Opanasenko, who is under investigation, began working in a high position in one of Rostec's structures. Some CNews sources suggested that we are talking about "Roselectronics".Three of the sources suggested that it could be about the "National Center for Informatization" (NCI), but so far they have not received confirmation of this information. Representatives of Rostec said that Opanasenko does not work at Roselectronics.

Representatives of Rostec answered the editorial board only to the question about Opanasenko's position in the state corporation. They ignored the question of the company's interest or the financial side of the transaction. At the time of publication of the material, representatives of Edelweiss could not comment on the deal to CNews.

As a source in the microelectronic market told CNews, Rostec, represented by a high-ranking executive, plans to take control of the intellectual property and design documentation of Edelweiss.

The company has very interesting developments from the point of view of import substitution on Russian processors from the Baikal line (initially, T-platforms were the founder of Baikal Electronics). In particular, Edelweiss has developed boards for Baikal-T and Baikal-M chips, as well as ready-made monoblocks for Baikal-M.

The fact that Vsevolod Opanasenko is a beneficiary of Edelweiss was reported to CNews directly or indirectly at various times by five sources. In addition, there is a message on the website of Edelweiss that "the company is a supplier and manufacturer of Russian equipment of its own design, the development of domestic companies and the company JSC T-Platforms."

Also indicating the connection between these two companies is that according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities on July 22, 2021, Kirill Alifanov became the CEO of Edelweiss, who has been acting as the CEO of T-Platforms since January 15, 2021. But already on March 25, 2022, Gennady Ivanov, the acting interim CEO of the Supercomputer Modeling Center, which is part of Rostec, took the position of Alifanov at Edelweiss.

The fact that Edelweiss and T-platforms have much closer ties on December 12, 2021, a veteran of T-platforms, Alexander Murashov, "let it slip" on his Facebook page. Leaving Edelweiss, Murashov wrote in a post "today is my last day of work in the T-platforms group of companies." Later, the post was deleted, but its screen was preserved in the CNews publication.

The editorial office does not have official confirmation of Vsevolod Opanasenko's connection with Edelweiss at the moment. "Vsevolod Opanasenko is not a beneficiary of Edelweiss LLC, and the company is beyond his control," Maria Bolotskaya, Marketing Director of Edelweiss, assured the editorial office. Yevgenia Opanasenko (the entrepreneur's wife) also refused to comment on this issue in mid-December 2020.

The connection of Edelweiss with Opanasenko is fundamentally important due to the fact that T-platforms owed the state at least 3.1 billion rubles, which were issued to the company in the form of six subsidies for electronic projects following the results of the thematic competition of the Ministry of Industry and Trade at the end of 2016.

Among such developments are "Lines of servers in the blade form factor for high—performance computing and data centers based on x86 processors and domestic processors of the Baikal family" (a subsidy of 437 million rubles. with a total project cost of 1.3 billion rubles), "Lines of workstations based on x86 processors and domestic processors of the Baikal family" (subsidy of 644 million rubles. with a total project cost of 1.81 billion rubles), etc. All these projects were supposed to be implemented by November 30, 2019, but this did not happen.

Accordingly, the issue of ownership of Edelweiss is closely related to the question of how independent or burdened this business is, as well as whether the company is the technological heir of T-Platforms.

Considering the public data about the company "Edelweiss", it can be noted that with extremely mediocre financial indicators, it conducts projects whose financial capacity should be hundreds of millions, or even billions of rubles. In any case, in the amount of this order, the state estimated similar developments of "T-platforms" when it supported them with subsidies.

At the end of November 2020, Alexander Murashov announced that Edelweiss had created a line of PCs on Baikal. Also, according to him, the company "had experience" in developing blade server and switch lines on domestic chips. Then it was announced about the beginning of the development of a laptop on "Baikal". The names of these works are identical or similar to the state-supported "T-platforms" projects.

At the same time, according to the "Contour.focus", at the end of 2019, the revenue of Edelweiss amounted to 1 million rubles. with a net loss of 4 million rubles. By the end of 2020, the indicators are also by no means billion-dollar: revenue 96.6 million rubles, profit 4.2 million rubles.

Also in December 2021, former top employees filed lawsuits against Edelweiss, believing that they were not properly paid off when they were dismissed. The total amount of claims amounted to about 1.2 million rubles.

In 2020, Alexander Grishchenkov became the executive director of Edelweiss, and then, in October 2020, he officially headed it. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, after leaving the company, on July 8, 2021, he registered his own organization, LLC Elpitech, whose main activity is the production of electronic printed circuit boards.

A representative of Edelweiss then assured CNews that Grishenkov left the company without conflict. But according to two CNews interlocutors familiar with the situation, the entire development team — about 40 people - left Grishchenkov from Edelweiss, and only a few support staff remained in the organization.

In October 2021, Elliptech, which united employees who committed a mass exodus from Edelweiss, released a motherboard on Baikal.

Opanasenko was detained in Moscow at the end of March 2019 and sent into custody in a case related to the problematic supply of computers to the Ministry of Internal Affairs for 357.1 million rubles. In March 2020, he was transferred to house arrest, and at the end of January 2022, he was released on his own recognizance.

Opanasenko is accused of violating Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code — fraud committed by an organized group or on a particularly large scale. The maximum penalty under it is imprisonment for up to 10 years.

The trial against him continues, but with significant interruptions. According to the file of the Moscow courts of general jurisdiction, sessions in the Opanasenko case began to be scheduled in the Meshchansky District Court from May 2020. Since then, meetings have been adjourned or postponed "for other reasons" more than 70 times. The intervals between adjourned meetings were usually one to two weeks. However, after the next postponed meeting, which took place on March 15, 2022, the next meeting is scheduled for August 23 (the break exceeds five months).

Source: CNews

so summarising all of this ... in my head

CPU Mass Production
It seems that getting equipment is one thing
but getting big volumes out of them is a bit of a black art .... for everyone including the Americans and Japanese
South Korea seems to have figured it out .....
CPU mass production is a black art to me -

batch building is what Russia does ... not mass production
Russia does not have a mass production CPU industry .... period

back to Angstrem
According to this Russia hired Taiwanese production experts to "revitalise" Angstrem
(I suspect this really means they are there to identify the missing components that are needed to get the place working ....
Angstrem smells of someone selling a bunch of "not-so-well-informed" Russians 90% of a factory ..... and 10% is missing .... done intentionally ?)

source:
https://inf.news/en/economy/0eacf8a01dbc9d99e481b421aedecfb5.html
Russia introduces Taiwanese experts to revitalize its independent development of chips

(back to Mikron
.... maybe that "extra" equipment Mikron is talking about
is coming from that Chinese milplex foundry ? )

Meanwhile in pc and server land .... and new govt subsidies

it smells of "entrepreneurs" seeing big govt subsidies on the horizon are jumping in building factories for servers everywhere etc
all doing much the same thing .... typical capitalist insanity

then the M&A phase starts up in true capitalist "rational" behaviour ....
that's fine for assembling servers and laptops etc

but CPUs .... that is a real black art from what you are saying
particularly mass production of them

if I was Rus I would have Rosatom move into their CPU manufacturing bigtime and sort it out
they are the guys with the fundamental skills and money and knowledge
everywhere Rosatom turns up - things seem to hum

Rostec on the other hand
seems these days to be a conglomerate like Samsung
its major role is to get rid of excess duplication across and within Rus industries
which are the legacy of regional govts all wanting completely vertically integrated businesses in their own state
(in its most extreme form is the aircraft industry - where each State has its own "brand name"
for an ex-communist country .... Russia has the most amazing number of aircraft "brand names")

its primary reason for existing these days ? to withstand sanctions pressure
becoming too big to hurt ....
and within it are massive "United" corporations .... UAC, UEC, USC .... Russian helicopters ..... )

I don't think Rostec is the company for such fundamental research and development
their bag is further up the food chain
and has its hands full anyway ..... as the buffer against sanctions pressure

Rostec is good at de-constructing existing vertically integrated businesses - mainly via M&A type activity
it rationalises existing industries .... because sanctions pressure has forced it to

Rostec is to me Socialism 2.0 ..... brought to you by Capitalist Sanctions
I find it really ironic

thing is Rus CPU industry ... as you describe it often
has very little to rationalise .... it barely exists in the first place

it needs to be built up from fundamental science etc
and that to me is Rosatom .... that is what they are good at

is there any other option anyway ? I don't see it

No, from what I understand the Angstrem-T factory was indeed built and the equipment was put into place. It took a long time, cost way over budget, but was done. However because of organizational issues they had a hard time getting it to work. And when they did get it to work, at low production rates, they had few customers and what few international customers they had were spooked by the sanctions related to the Crimea issue. Most of their commercial Russian clients probably also had ease sourcing chips abroad elsewhere. Since unlike Mikron they seemingly did not have state orders or support and they floundered. So the VTB Bank took them over for unpaid debt. And now they are part of NM Tech. The factory seems to be operating with the aid of Taiwanese technical experts.
https://nm-tech.org/

Now with the sanctions and now that imports of materials have been banned it remains to be seen how this factory will do. I doubt it can do well without some form of government support. Even if it is something as simple as financing for customers to transition to their production platform. This factory would easily be able to cover all Russian demand for things like embedded computers for commercial ships, which are sanctioned, or for automotive components, which are also sanctioned. In fact it is probably overkill for that.

I have no idea about the Malaysia capabilities but:

[Sputink Telegram]

Malaysian Ambassador to Russia Bala Chandran told Sputnik that he believes
that the country would consider an opportunity to sell semiconductors and electronics to Russia.

"Micron" is trying to double the production of chips by 2025
Today
But this is not enough for Russia. To cover the country's need for chips of topological norms of 130-90 nm, you need to print at least 30 thousand silicon wafers per month. Now Micron prints only 3 thousand. Doubling is planned by 2025, and using equipment (etching, deposition and photolitographs) purchased on the secondary market from Asian companies and installed in-house.

Mr electrobrain on Yandex again ....

https://zen.yandex.ru/media/electromozg/mikron-pytaetsia-udvoit-proizvodstvo-chipov-k-2025-godu-62648be1a7b56a6d8b4fc140?&

re Malaysia
Penang Island became a bit of "Silicon Valley" back in the 1990s ?
everyone built assembly plants there ... guess they are finding it tough re China these days ?
think the actual CPUs were from Taiwan though ...
that was I think, the boom time for Sony Playstations and X-Boxes .... they couldn't build them fast enough
they had serious graphics cards in them for the time

Malaysia does have quite a few Su-30s they want to upgrade .... interesting barter opportunity ?

this is a rambling piece about a new Aerospace electronics innovation cluster planned for Ryazan

"An aerospace innovation valley will appear in the Russian Federation. On its fields will develop advanced technologies and materials, as well as the latest types of products: aerospace, biomedical and information technologies, as well as electronics and radio engineering. Astronauts and experts call for the creation on its basis of a cluster for the development and production of microchips and microelectronics for the aerospace industry.
It is they who the space sphere needs most of all."

https://www.aviaport.ru/digest/2022/04/27/717031.html

Why Ryazan ? I have no idea at all .....

The Angstrem-T plant should easily manufacture that much if they get it to work.
AMD Dresden Fab 30, that equipment when it used to be in Germany, produced 30,000 200mm wafers per month.

However the Angstream-T prospectus claims 15,000 wafers per month. Perhaps production is reduced at 90nm?
Or perhaps they did not get the whole of Fab 30?

Anyway, assume 15,000 wafers per month. So that much can theoretically be sourced. Add to that the 3,000 wafers per month of Mikron and they would not be far off from that target. Like I said, they should just make a common platform on both fabs, so you can easily switch designs from one fab to the other, and get the Angstrem-T fab cracking on those smart cards or whatever they need that Mikron can't supply in volume.

I am somewhat interested in this https://rostec.ru/news/rostekh-i-ran-sozdadut-novyy-klass-radioelektronnoy-apparatury-na-osnove-ferritov/

Roselectronics Holding of rostec State Corporation and the Institute of Electrophysics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences have begun research that will expand the areas of application of ferrite materials. In particular, to create new classes of radio-electronic and telecommunication equipment with a high level of reliability and protection from external influences.

The corresponding agreement was signed by Maxim Kavaev, Director General of the Ferrit-Domain Research Institute of the Roselektronika Holding, and Stanislav Tchaikovsky, Director of the Institute of Electrophysics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The cooperation provides for research work and the creation of a layout for the installation of ultrashort voltage pulses with ferrite elements. The solution will explore the possibility of creating secure communication systems without the need for encryption due to guaranteed physical protection against unauthorized direction finding and interception, as well as to ensure highly reliable radio communications. In addition, the installation can be used for medical research in radiology and in microwave generators to measure the electrodynamic and crystallographic characteristics of objects.

"Direct interaction of fundamental science with the real sector of the economy is fundamentally necessary for the creation of new breakthrough technologies. Therefore, we look forward to long-term and fruitful cooperation with our new partner - Research Institute "Ferrit-Domain". From a practical point of view, systems using ferrites are easy to perform, while they are able to ensure stability and a high frequency of pulse repetition, which makes it possible to increase the service life of the equipment, "said Stanislav Tchaikovsky, Director of the Institute of Electrophysics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In accordance with the agreement, the Research Institute "Ferrit-Domain" became an industrial partner of the Institute of Electrophysics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

"The result of our cooperation will be the creation of fundamentally new classes of equipment for radar, radio communication, crystallographic analysis, as well as scientific research. In the current economic conditions, our joint work with the Institute of Electrophysics is extremely relevant and aimed at increasing the scientific, technical, innovative and production potential of Russian science and production," said Maxim Kavaev, Director General of the Ferrit-Domain Research Institute.

Research Institute "Ferrit-Domain" is a leading enterprise for the development and production of microwave materials, ferrite microwave devices for space and research in the field of high-energy physics, as well as communication systems, radar and wireless telecommunication systems.

Research Institute "Ferrit-Domain" is a leading enterprise for the development and production of microwave materials, ferrite microwave devices for space and research in the field of high-energy physics, as well as communication systems, radar and wireless telecommunication systems.

When I close my eyes I can hear a womans voice reading this out as I ride the monorail to my lab in Black Mesa....

here's some stuff for you guys
I was trying to understand this post by Mr Electrobrain on Yandex Zen

https://zen.yandex.ru/media/electromozg/fabrika-dlia-laboratornoissledovatelskoi-linii-tehprocessa-28-nm-v-zelenograde-6273021a100e52425117e450?&
"Factory for laboratory and research line of 28 nm process technology in Zelenograd"

he speculates that this MIET University was going to buy a 28nm plant and run it .....
makes no sense to me - why would a Uni do that
..... pull it apart and reverse engineer it .... definitely

seems this MIET was the Uni that was at the core of this cluster
as was another org called NIIME

they sy that Angstrem is indeed there too

MIET research-educational and innovation complex acts as the basis for establishing and developing Free Economic Zone for Technology Innovation – Special Economic Zone “Techopolis Moscow”.

Special economic zone “Technopolis Moscow” (former SEZ “Zelenograd” or TVZ “Zelenograd”) is a special economic zone of a technology-innovative type, created in 2005 initially on the territory of the Zelenograd administrative district of Moscow on the sites of Alabushevo and MIET.

Now there are 6 sites:
Alabushevo site
MIET site
NIIME and Mikron site
Angstrem site
Technopolis Moscow in the South-Eastern Administrative District
Rudnevo site.
The participation of MIET complex within Technopolis Moscow is of strategic importance, as it allows to use the existing infrastructure for the development of innovation activities.

so then Mr Electrobrain says that MIET is building a new 50,000m2 building .... that's pretty big
their existing one is apparently 26,000m2

it looks a 2 storey building so - you can safely say offices upstairs - workshops below
... I get that bit
seems to me they are planning to build a pilot production plant for 28nm to their own spec ?
which makes sense .... downstairs

meanwhile NIIME says it does so 65nm and 90nm .... but it seems mostly 90nm
smells of military and space funding ?

https://www.niime.ru/en/technologies/

you always wonder with these "clusters" whether they really work closely together
or compete with each other for govt funds .... guess its both

https://eng.miet.ru/page/10871

I remember visiting JPL outside Los Angeles a while ago
it was on the same campus as Caltec Uni ....
seemed to work well ...

anyway you guys who understand this better than me might make a bit of sense of all this
but yeah 50,00m2 building .... that is not small .... so they are up to something big you would think

Gazputin wrote:here's some stuff for you guys
I was trying to understand this post by Mr Electrobrain on Yandex Zen

https://zen.yandex.ru/media/electromozg/fabrika-dlia-laboratornoissledovatelskoi-linii-tehprocessa-28-nm-v-zelenograde-6273021a100e52425117e450?&
"Factory for laboratory and research line of 28 nm process technology in Zelenograd"

he speculates that this MIET University was going to buy a 28nm plant and run it .....
makes no sense to me - why would a Uni do that
..... pull it apart and reverse engineer it .... definitely

seems this MIET was the Uni that was at the core of this cluster
as was another org called NIIME

they sy that Angstrem is indeed there too

MIET research-educational and innovation complex acts as the basis for establishing and developing Free Economic Zone for Technology Innovation – Special Economic Zone “Techopolis Moscow”.

Special economic zone “Technopolis Moscow” (former SEZ “Zelenograd” or TVZ “Zelenograd”) is a special economic zone of a technology-innovative type, created in 2005 initially on the territory of the Zelenograd administrative district of Moscow on the sites of Alabushevo and MIET.

Now there are 6 sites:
Alabushevo site
MIET site
NIIME and Mikron site
Angstrem site
Technopolis Moscow in the South-Eastern Administrative District
Rudnevo site.
The participation of MIET complex within Technopolis Moscow is of strategic importance, as it allows to use the existing infrastructure for the development of innovation activities.

so then Mr Electrobrain says that MIET is building a new 50,000m2 building .... that's pretty big
their existing one is apparently 26,000m2

it looks a 2 storey building so - you can safely say offices upstairs - workshops below
... I get that bit
seems to me they are planning to build a pilot production plant for 28nm to their own spec ?
which makes sense .... downstairs

meanwhile NIIME says it does so 65nm and 90nm .... but it seems mostly 90nm
smells of military and space funding ?

https://www.niime.ru/en/technologies/

you always wonder with these "clusters" whether they really work closely together
or compete with each other for govt funds .... guess its both

https://eng.miet.ru/page/10871

I remember visiting JPL outside Los Angeles a while ago
it was on the same campus as Caltec Uni ....
seemed to work well ...

anyway you guys who understand this better than me might make a bit of sense of all this
but yeah 50,00m2 building .... that is not small .... so they are up to something big you would think

MIET is in Zelenogorod in Moscow oblast. It was called a center of Soviet Silicon Valley. It is a university specialized in research of  electronics.

https://eng.miet.ru/

It was called a center of Soviet Silicon Valley. It is a university specialized in research of electronics.

So analysing the process and improving it and making it faster and easier and cheaper, rather than production of chips itself, though I would expect it would have to produce some to test new methods and new materials for the process...

Very interesting.

I read those Russian news sites. It seems there was a construction plan which was approved in like 2020.

The plan was to build new facilities in Zelenograd at the same location where Angstrem facilities used to be. First they would demolish the existing unused Angstrem buildings directly north of the Angstrem-T building. The demolition was done in 2021. Construction was then supposed to start between 2022 and 2024 on a four story building for fabrication of 300mm diameter wafers at 28nm. This building was to have been located in an area between the Angstrem and Angstrem-T plants. They were also supposed to build several more huge buildings. One was to be a research center integrated with the university. There were also meant to be further fabrication facilities. Two of them in the north where the older Angstrem plants were. Fabrication for what, I do not know. And finally the Angstrem-T building was supposed to be demolished and replaced with something else. Now, this plan seems insane to me. The Angstrem-T facility only started operations in late 2017 and all the equipment is there. I think it is just stupid to consider demolishing it. A lot of similar fabs worldwide are still in operations and have plenty of clients. But perhaps this is a REALLY long term goal.

A lot of the commenters claim the Angstrem-T fab is currently not operational (which goes against what I read elsewhere). It seems Angstrem-T has been under sanctions ever since Medvedev visited it in 2016 for their inauguration. But Angstrem-T still managed to begin operations in late 2017 anyways. However they did go bankrupt, passed on to VTB, then later got a Chinese client to make 250nm smart card chips for cellphones. Orders for 10,000 wafers per month for at least all of 2020 with possibility of extension of the contract. Currently the factory is part of NM-Tech.

Somewhere else in the articles it states after the new situation their construction plans were frozen this year.

What I do not get is the facilities are just plain huge. The initial building seems to be a small production 300mm fab probably to prototype the process. And I suspect the two huge buildings in the north are two full production twin 300mm fabs. However given the sanctions I doubt they can still use the same building design. The tools will not be the same so the floor layout likely would not be the same either.

Here is the plan for the development. Which seems to have been stopped. Coordinates 55.98026011774556, 37.214472088231204.

The first building with the initial 300mm wafer fab was supposed to be the small one in the middle.

I think those huge plants were linked to the idea where they were pushing for all cars manufactured in Russia to use locally made CPUs
the idea being that would start to give the electronics industry some serious critical mass
(still pretty small by world standards )

I remember reading something about that in Rusautonews a while ago - can't find the article ... yet
and the Taiwanese guys employed to fix Angstrem were linked to that too ?

so .... following on this line of thinking .... hmmmm
ahhh here we go ..... New fab in Germany by Intel

you can bet this plant will supply the car industry in Germany .... a key industry there
this has to be why they were looking at such a huge factory in Moscow as Lancelot said ....

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22978954/intel-semiconductor-manufacturing-hub-germany-fab-europe-investment

and it looks fn huge (too) in the rendering .... even mentions "Angstrom" ....

"The new German site will consist of two semiconductor fabs in Magdeburg, with construction set to start in the first half of 2023 ahead of planned production in 2027. They’ll produce Intel’s next-generation “Angstrom-era” products (which would include the upcoming Intel 20A and Intel 18A nodes that the company detailed last year). The new fabs won’t just be making chips for Intel, either: the goal is for the site to help produce chips for Intel Foundry Services customers, too. Intel says that the Germany project will see 7,000 new jobs for constructing the massive new fabs, along with 3,000 permanent jobs at Intel once the fab starts production in a few years."

Guess where Magdeburg is .... just down the road from the massive VW factory in Wolfsburg
88kms away .... 55 minute drive

cars made in Russia in 2021 .... 130,000
Kamaz trucks .... 40,000
plus GAZ etc

more background research ....

"The average car today can have between 25 and 50 central processing units (CPUs)"

so you are looking at 5mil CPUs p.a.
most of which are "old tech" for durability reasons

my money says those big factories were linked to the Russian car industry plans

another interesting development .... linked to this I believe

Silarus
there was also a plan to make high quality silicon at a new plant in the Urals near where they produce all the titanium
a company called Silarus ....
smelters are electric .... and furnaces were being provided by the Italians
2x 27 mW furnaces .... so a new power substation had to built for it
20 hectare site .....
I assume titanium is smelted in a similar way .... hmmm .... yep
ok so same skills sets involved .... so that makes a lot of sense too

all this has to be linked

"Kommersant.- The Ministry of Industry and Commerce has developed a support programme to stimulate the demand for Russian electronics in the automotive industry. The ministry is ready to issue an annual subsidy of 4 billion rubles to each car manufacturer, for the introduction of electronic components into their vehicles."

https://rusautonews.com/2021/04/16/local-oems-will-receive-subsidies-for-the-transition-to-russian-electronics/

when you look at the car industry in Russia
is such that it is impossible to get profitable sales in Rus market in the mass market area without becoming a local manufacturer
your top 20 cars are all locally assembled .... so it was a good plan

interesting article .....

note all the electronics for emissions reduction .... safety ..... energy efficiency ....
all govt regs ..... growing and growing
leading to more and more demand for CPUs ..... and why there are global shortages .....