Russian Electronics: Semiconductor and Processors

But while walking around the Metalworking exhibition, I met a couple of CNC machines that are built on the basis of Russian processors. One of them is based on "Elbrus-8C" and the other on the basis of "Baikal-T". Moreover, the same company is also developing a meringue processor "Skif".

In short, I somehow do not notice a decrease in the intensity of development based on our processors, despite the ban from TSMC. Moreover, new products are also appearing. For example, ICL showed a new server motherboard based on the Baikal-S processor.

I will note, by the way, that not only the processor is Russian here, but also "loose", resistors and ceramic capacitors of Russian production. By the way, this is not the first time I have heard that Russian SMD components have started to be used. Yes, they are still more expensive, but in principle their contribution to the total cost is not so significant, and with the growth of production, the price will fall.

lancelot wrote:Huawei is under US sanctions in the entity list. They cannot ask TSMC to manufacture their chip designs that used to power their smartphones anymore. In addition any Western electronics they want to order have to be explicitly vetted and approved by the US government on a case by case basis. They are basically being forced to buy chips from Qualcomm and other US companies. To the point the US didn't even let them buy 5G modems, only 4G ones. This when Huawei spent hundreds of millions designing their own chips which they can't manufacture anymore because they were made for fabrication at TSMC. So my guess is Huawei just closed the stores for consumer products but probably maintain support for telecoms equipment. Mind you those Qualcomm chips are also made at TSMC in Taiwan or Samsung in South Korea.

I know Huawei did not close their R&D facilities in Russia. Those continue to operate. This is unlike what Western companies did. Eventually the Chinese will have their own sanctions proof commercial fabrication facilities. But like I said now is not the time.

If Russia wants to get Chinese help with chips, it will have to work with their MIC and companies like CETC.

kvs wrote:The 28 nm news is all over the map.   First I hear talk about Russian equipment being ready by 2030 and now I see a factory being built.   I suppose that
it is using ASML equipment.   This is consistent with the talk about a move to 28 nm over the last few years.   So the 28 nm project did not start this year.
What would be useful if these journalists did their jobs and reported on the capacity for 28 nm parts being deployed.   I think it is sufficient to cover
Russian needs for the next 8 years.   In other words, Russia must have acquired a substantial amount of manufacturing equipment and did not leave
itself in a situation where it would have to wait a decade to develop its own.

As for the 2030 target for Russian 28 nm lithography equipment, I wonder whether it is true.   I do not believe that the development work on such equipment
started in 2022.  I do not care about the contracts awarded since they could just be a way to organize existing exploratory development work already
conducted.   That is, the enterprises (research institutes, etc.) that have carried out this work will just go through a rubber stamping process to deliver
it.   They get the money and also get to organize their projects into a more coherent form.   Anyone who does development work (software, hardware) knows
that it is not a linear progression along a single path.   There are lots of branches that are not necessarily dead ends.

Another aspect that needs noting is that the ultra-fine lithography ICs are a diminishing returns sort of product.   If you have an NC milling machine,
then you do not need "7 nm" CPUs with a hundreds of cores to drive it.   Much older generation CPUs already deliver the needed functionality.   I am
sure that back in the 1980s this was not true and latest generation fabrication products had a large impact on NC machine performance.   But this has
not been true for 20+ years.   Similarly a lot of military electronics have saturated years ago and do not require the latest generation of ICs.   The only
field where there is such a need is in HPC, graphics and AI.   But AI is not deployed by the US and NATzO in any way that leaves Russia behind.  Maybe
in 20 years things will change, but Russia is not standing still.  

 

GarryB wrote:
Chip making technology is developed like any other technology... Russia now has a need to invest in some of its own technology... and I rather doubt they will bother with all that effort and money to just get what the west has got... they will want to revolutionise it and make it affordable, make it more capable, and make it better... current stuff is reaching its limits... it is clearly time to start going in different directions using new materials and new technologies...

caveat emptor wrote:

GarryB wrote:
Chip making technology is developed like any other technology... Russia now has a need to invest in some of its own technology... and I rather doubt they will bother with all that effort and money to just get what the west has got... they will want to revolutionise it and make it affordable, make it more capable, and make it better... current stuff is reaching its limits... it is clearly time to start going in different directions using new materials and new technologies...

Chip manufacturing, everywhere it was established, took a long time and was extremely expensive. I don't believe Russia will find a way to change that. Judging by how long China takes to develop its own tech, with much more money invested and better overall situation in the industry. Russia proved capable in the design department. Not so much in manufacture.
Claiming that they will come up with something revolutionary is delusional.

sepheronx wrote:

That is why I think they will go the route of localizing production of the lithography equipment they got (so a form of reverse engineering) along with assistance from Planar who used to build such equipment during Soviet times.  Then they will improve upon that design on their own regarding lower nm.  It will take a while.  But we shall see.  Maybe they will seek to look at graphite and other methods of semiconductor production.  Necessity is the mother of invention.

Gazputin wrote:
80% of domestic demand for car electronics .... pretty ambitious ...
assume he's talking about Lada and Kamaz etc too .... all the Rus brands
what would that be ? around 100-150,000 vehicles p.a. ?

GarryB wrote:The first sets of sanctions in 2008 were supposed to destroy the Russian oil industry and therefore also collapse the country because obviously without amazing western oil drilling technology Russia couldn't access its oil and gas deposits and will come crawling to the west.

I would say the fact that they now make their own machine tooling equipment... something we were told they lost and would never get back too, why wouldn't they look at modern chip design and work out how to make it better and easier and cheaper... it might be a matter of trying different materials...

Scorpius wrote:Just recently I read an article (unfortunately, the link has already been lost), where one of the representatives of Russian microelectronics plants said that one of the ways to solve the shortage could be the development of optimized circuits for older technical processes: in some cases, well-optimized chips executed on 250+ nanometer technology work just as well as those which are executed on 65 or 90 nanometer technology. Therefore, one of the solutions is the development of optimized chips based on older technological processes that have already been mastered on fully Russian equipment. Thus, more money and industrial capacity can be allocated for more responsible systems.