Russian Electronics: Semiconductor and Processors

The VLIW elbrus CPU can be rendered effectively on a 65 nm process. It does not require the enormous amount of transistors that
RISC with a CISC front-end and out-of-order, implicitly parallel x86 CPUs employ. The elbrus offloads the optimization onto the compiler
and saves precious IC real estate. This is the reason that the elbrus has such a low power draw. I think that it is not an accident
that Russia has pursued a VLIW architecture given its fabrication limitations.

Russia can achieve 28 nm without absurd levels of effort. This process size manufacturing capability is almost happening by inertia. This
resolution can be used to produce 8 core elbrus CPUs. But Russia is investing in extreme EUV lithography so it will be able to achieve
14 nm. In my opinion within the next 10 years. That is 8 x 4 = 32 cores if 28 nm gives 4 x 2 cores.

The wafer size is about production volume. This is not a priority for Russia. Producing lower defect 200 mm wafers is good enough.

lancelot wrote:The sanctions only apply to things with Western content in them. In a couple of years China will have commercial fabs with 100% Chinese production tools and equipment in them.

Even today the Chinese government already has sanctions proof semiconductor production facilities using equipment made and operated by CETC which can make chips at 90nm or better. Those Chinese production facilities do not operate in the commercial market but are part of the Chinese MIC. I told that here before.

China has had sanctions on purchasing military grade equipment and components from the West since the Tienanmen Square incident in 1989. How do you think they make the chips for AESA radars and the avionics in their fighter aircraft? Russia's MIC only got similar sanctions after annexation of Crimea in 2014. So how come the Chinese have AESA radar on their aircraft and thermal sights on their tanks? They surely are not importing them.

The Chinese commercial sector is currently the market leader in security cameras and they are quickly moving towards dominance of the commercial camera sensor sector as well. Why do you think the US slapped sanctions on Hikvision, a commercial CETC subsidiary, and yet made a carveout so their own MIC can continue purchasing Hikvision equipment?

And sorry, but a more complex chip tends to be slower, not faster. So how come the Elbrus-2C+ has the same CPU cores, with extra DSP cores, and is faster? 500 MHz vs 300 MHz. It is quite simple. The 90nm process at TSMC is better than the one Mikron uses which they got from STMicro.

As for Russia making its own lithography equipment, it takes more than lithography equipment to make chips. The Chinese have been at this for over a decade already. Probably close to two. And you think the Russian industry will solve all those problems in less than a decade? I think you are being overly optimistic. The current plan only seems to be focused on lithography to begin with. What about making masks, and all that other crap? You need like a dozen different types of machine tools just on the main production line of a semiconductor fab. That is ignoring all the equipment you will need to make the materials to operate the fab.

Russia also has a longer knowledge in the industry than China dating back to Soviet era where they made the equipment and implementation.  Funny thing is, a huge portion of Planar is still the old guard who were there during those days.  Maybe too old but still they carry important knowledge.

They will do it. I heard same stuff you said about nearly every sector of russias industry for last 20 years. CNC machines being the biggest example (and all proven wrong).  This is also why they are aiming at 180nm to 28 first as 65nm and up they are already familiar with with current production. Maybe they will be forced to reverse engineer the equipment they got now so be it.

China won't be building Russian cpus. I'm sorry. We already heard about it.  Maybe they can though get something out of Huawei since they operate in Russia and China and are sanctioned themselves.  Only other way is if China gets heavily sanctioned themselves which forces hands of these internal industries to move to Russian market.

I agree with KVS here and time will tell.  But as there is a saying "buy on the rumors and sell on the news", the rumors are China, the news state Russian production.  So in this regard, we are already getting the word.

In the end, Russia will rely on Grey market for its gpus and consumer cpus while they will concentrate on domestic production needs.  This is so far what the news is saying.

https://tass.com/economy/1459877

Inert gas export restriction to strengthen Russia’s position on microelectronics market
Russia restricted exports of inert gases, including neon, to unfriendly states in late May

MOSCOW, June 2. /TASS/. The restriction of inert gases export will strengthen Russian positions on the global microelectronics market, Deputy Minister of Industry Vasily Shpak told TASS.

Russia restricted exports of inert gases, including neon, to unfriendly states in late May. Such gases comprise in particular argon and helium used in production of semiconductors.

"We have sufficient capabilities, we are present on this market. We also plan to increase production capacities in the near future. We believe we will have an opportunity of being heard in this global chain and this will provide us with certain competitive advantages, if there is a need for mutually beneficial talks with colleagues," the official said.

Inert gases are among base materials for production of semiconductors, Shpak said.

"About 4,000 various materials and chemicals are used to produce semiconductors, speaking about the process. However, there are basic things present with actually all the producers in the process - in particular, these are high-purity gases, especially neon," he noted.

The crisis with semiconductors started long before the pandemic and the decision on inert gases export restrictions "will enable chains turned out to be disrupted for the time being in a new fashion," the official added.

in other words Putin's Russia will become like a new Cuba or venezuela , in high tech.
with super obsolete electronics and the only high tech they will get ,is the one  they steal ,
from abroad.. or buy secretly in china.   wondering what could happen , if those american processors
will start to be locked ,to not operate in russian territory as soon they are detected on the internet and their serial number does not match the region they are being used.    

So the worse is yet to come for russia. Russia will become like another cuba  ,a giant museum of soviet era equipment , because no longer they can't buy technology from the true developed
countries in the world in digital era.  the few processors russia could get in black market , will not be
enough not even for their own military needs.. probably the drones russia have now , will be the last ones.. if they can't figure a way to produce high tech electronics.

and like others have noticed. china will not help russia directly ,for fear of sanctions..  best china could do is pass knowledge ,information , to russian scientist ,so they produce some old processors .
Russia will become lke a new north korea..  a nation totally isolated from the  high tech world.

and who is the one to blame for all this ?

nothing less than the master chess dimensional player.. putin.. the idiot ,that ignored russia high tech industry for two decades .   Russia is at very least 30 years ,more likely 40 years away of the modern electronics the west today trade in their countries.

Remove putin ,and replace him for a true visionary leader ,and you will see how russia take off.

Here are the hopes of russia , that by 2030 , they will have the capability ,to produce processors ,
taiwan could make in 2011.  



The legacy of putin ,will be remembered for sure , but with curses by its own citizens ,
thanks for nothing , when they realize how far behind russia development will become in the near
future, will move backwards.. because the idiots , in the russian government ,did not saw the danger
of depending so much for its technology , on american controlled puppet states. like taiwan, that use a lot of american intellectual tech.. and they can dictate who will be allowed to get technology and who don't.

Putin's will go on history records , for creating the world biggest Potemkin village.
better know today as russia federation.

here is the the definition..  so people understand putin's legacy..

What is a Potemkin state?
This refers to any kind of false structure built to deceive observers into believing that a situation is much better than it actually is. The term has its origin in the fake villages that were constructed by Russian military leader Grigory Potyomkin in the 18th century.

A term made popular by european diplomats used to describe imperial russia , when they used to depend totally in europe, for absolutely everything.. everything was imported from europe ,even the uniforms of the russian empire soldiers and their guns ,was imported too and not even the russian language spoken , in the russian palance.. as it was during catherine the great times , and earlier.
Even peter the great , had to travel in person , to britain ,to learn how to build advanced warships.
the only thing russia had to offer ,the world ,was a very large army ,that was for hire , for the right amount of money and this was during russian golden era.

putin's russia is a potemkin state ,and he is the only one to blame for this disastrous development of the nation.  relying so much in the west and its allied states.  Now russia will need a miracle , that by 2030 , they hope to have the same capabilities of the west had by in 2011.  

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/russia-semiconductor-plan-28nm

it is true ,that putin did not invented rusia backwardness , since russia always depended on
the west for most of its own development . only during russia space race golden era ,that appeared
to end.. but is not less true ,that putin did absolutely nothing ,to solve the problems with russia
dependence on the collective western business.

for much less incompetence , people have gone to jail in russia.. this is criminal negligence ,what
putin did to the country.. and doesn't look like it will ever be fixed. what putin could not do in 20 years , will not happen in 10 . The worse times are yet to come , when no new advance electronics or technology ,no appears in russian malls or shopping centers in the next decade or more.. russia
future will now be  100% dependent on china skills to bypass western sanctions and provide with technology russia .  

Blah blah blah Vann...

This is the perfect stimulus for Russia to improve chip design and technology for making chips... leaving things to lazy western companies only interested in making money means they have hidden the technology and kept it for themselves and that restriction limits growth and development potential... like the western churches held back growth and development during the dark ages in Europe...

This is a good thing.

Russia will work with non western countries to develop new technologies and production capacity and make their own stuff, perhaps creating a bit of stability instead of iteration improvements so you have to upgrade your phone or computer every two or three years or it becomes out of date perhaps new designs that are expandable and use standard slots so when your CPU is out of date you can take it out and slot in a newer CPU to boost performance... motherboards and circuit boards could be designed for future growth potential...

GarryB wrote:

Russia will work with non western countries to develop new technologies and production capacity and make their own stuff, perhaps creating a bit of stability instead of iteration improvements so you have to upgrade your phone or computer every two or three years or it becomes out of date perhaps new designs that are expandable and use standard slots so when your CPU is out of date you can take it out and slot in a newer CPU to boost performance... motherboards and circuit boards could be designed for future growth potential...

as long as there's not a "state capitalism" i.e. controlling tech developments by R&D programmes, demand management and grants Russian companies will be greedy the same way. And very few of them seriously focus on internal market in terms of new tech..

There's no deficit of good rains in Russia yet only genius designers dont do much without the whole ecosystem supporting companies: internal capital market as a money pump, demand management (first demand management ) and scaling -up capabilities. You have great startup witn a new tech so how can you change scale it up ot a bit company? either a lots of money or include it in Rostech.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:There's no deficit of good  rains in Russia yet only genius designers dont do much without the whole ecosystem supporting companies: internal capital market as a money pump, demand management (first demand management )  and scaling -up capabilities. You have great startup witn a new tech so how can you change scale it up ot a bit company? either a lots of money or include it in Rostech.

It is easy to say it is all because of lack of investment in the private sector. But when it costs tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to design a chip and more to put it into production, and that is when you can use the international semi fabs, it isn't easy to justify your own chip design if you have a limited market. Not when you can buy chips for tens or hundreds of dollars. This is the infant industry argument.

lancelot wrote:

GunshipDemocracy wrote:There's no deficit of good  rains in Russia yet only genius designers dont do much without the whole ecosystem supporting companies: internal capital market as a money pump, demand management (first demand management )  and scaling -up capabilities. You have great startup witn a new tech so how can you change scale it up ot a bit company? either a lots of money or include it in Rostech.

It is easy to say it is all because of lack of investment in the private sector. But when it costs tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to design a chip and more to put it into production, and that is when you can use the international semi fabs, it isn't easy to justify your own chip design if you have a limited market. Not when you can buy chips for tens or hundreds of dollars. This is the infant industry argument.

That's exactly what I said, without "invisible" governments hand nothing changes. You wont make new designs without market justification. BUT once   govt helps directly building say fabs - as a matter of national security. Then you open the whole new window of opportunities with new markets. Not everyone can/wants to buy in the west.

Using this as a flywheel you can start building capital markets for startups... not the other way around.

The free market in the west is an absurd myth. All the large economic decisions are made by a few players. The oligarchy and their
government puppets. Fools around the world have to learn this the hard way when they import the BS ideology from the west.

For Russia, communism was a western import. It had to lose a lot of blood and treasure to make this crap work. In the end it was
sabotaged from within and the whole experiment was an epic waste. The rotten ex-commies imported another ideology from the
west and sent Russia into the toilet in the 1990s. But thank God there were enough professionals in the system who threw this
crap out after 1998.

Thanks to the legacy of the 1990s, Russia has not made correct decisions about IC manufacturing. It was still following the retarded
market forces model in the 2010s. It should have been bootstrapping high resolution lithography from the 2000s in a big way. BTW,
China has the right approach in this regard.

kvs wrote:The free market in the west is an absurd myth.   All the large economic decisions are made by a few players.   The oligarchy and their
government puppets.   Fools around the world have to learn this the hard way when they import the BS ideology from the west.

For Russia, communism was a western import.   It had to lose a lot of blood and treasure to make this crap work.   In the end it was
sabotaged from within and the whole experiment was an epic waste.   The rotten ex-commies imported another ideology from the
west and sent Russia into the toilet in the 1990s.   But thank God there were enough professionals in the system who threw this
crap out after 1998.  

In 2000 Russia's main problem was in having enough food and Islamic terrorism security. Putin has been securing "gosudarstvenniks" block since very beginning, In 2000 west needed no orange revolutions pressing oligarchs more could do the trick. So yes true what you write yet IMHO then it would be impossible to stop this shit and start investing in high tech.

kvs wrote:
Thanks to the legacy of the 1990s, Russia has not made correct decisions about IC manufacturing.   It was still following the retarded
market forces model in the 2010s.   It should have been bootstrapping high resolution lithography from the 2000s in a big way.   BTW,
China has the right approach in this regard.

Agree 100% yet China and Russia's geopolitical situation was different. IMHO if Russia started in 2000 rivalry with the west there would have been Russia anymore. At least in shape she is now.

BTW Russia can still use good stuff from communism (like state planning, demand management of financing development in desired directions) not to wait for mythical "infestors" .

But when it costs tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to design a chip and more to put it into production, and that is when you can use the international semi fabs, it isn't easy to justify your own chip design if you have a limited market. Not when you can buy chips for tens or hundreds of dollars. This is the infant industry argument.

But Russia is going to be denied access to these cheap chips by the west, so developing general purpose chips that can be used for most jobs makes sense...

Perhaps their solution would be a modular chip with modest performance, but it is the motherboard that is at the heart of development, where simple jobs you can use a set of CPU chips, and instead of always developing new faster chips you develop new motherboards that can hold more CPUs to improve performance.

Old super computers use ancient 68000 processors in massive parallel configurations because the old chips (they were old when they were used) were cheap so you could use lots of them, but obviously the racks you put them in and linked and powered was the custom designed bit was not cheap... but you still had a super computer...

Different problems require different solutions.

They can of course also play the blackmail game the west plays... no chips for Russia no Xenon or Neon or other important gasses the west uses and needs... see how that works...

trust me on this..

very dark times ,await russia in the high tech sector , for the 20 years of passiveness of putin in
the semiconductor sector and advanced electronics business..

for example all western latest software ,will require people to be online , so even if russia manage to steal or buy computers with american chips in asia , at expense of some country risk sanctions , a true embarrassing thing to do ,that they should feel ashamed of it ,  then still they will have the problems with software .
so now people don't see a problem , but when those american parts computers no longer available
there will find huge problems not only in finding hardware ,but software too.  Right now russian
game developers on steam ,have been banned.. and game developer kits tools like unreal engine banned too , adobe and all software from west too ,so wait for a major exodus of software developers ,artist , movie makers ,musichians and game companies away of russia. only china have a chance to save russia civilian high tech industry and military one too , ,because putin will not do in the next 8 years , what he failed to do in the past 22.

Russia is playing fair when it comes to noble gases. Sanctions are a two way street and Russia is not engaged in blackmail by
responding. I can't believe that such BS is even being raised in this thread. In the case of Taiwan, Russia recognizes
only China and will continue to supply China with Neon, etc. Taiwan can then go and get the gases from China. It is not Russia's
problem that they are uncomfortable and that it does not jive with the wishes of their owners in Washington.

http://www.mcst.ru/doc/syrcose11_submission_16.pdf

The binary translators used on the Elbrus are more advanced than Digital's FX32 and Apple's Rosetta.   In particular, the Lintel translator
floats any x86 based OS and applications.    The Digital and Apple products are application level translators.  

However, the basic issue remains that native compilation of programs is the best for performance.   Elbrus can stick with HPC and engineering and
science target uses.   Fretting over application binaries is for generic consumers.   May as well use Chinese x86 clones for this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin

China clearly has the correct approach.

kvs wrote:http://www.mcst.ru/doc/syrcose11_submission_16.pdf

The binary translators used on the Elbrus are more advanced than Digital's FX32 and Apple's Rosetta.   In particular, the Lintel translator
floats any x86 based OS and applications.    The Digital and Apple products are application level translators.  

However, the basic issue remains that native compilation of programs is the best for performance.   Elbrus can stick with HPC and engineering and
science target uses.   Fretting over application binaries is for generic consumers.   May as well use Chinese x86 clones for this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin

China clearly has the correct approach.

Nothing prevents Russia from doing their own x86. I mean, they can reverse engineer, not like it wasnt done before.

Maybe not modern FAB's but is x86 necessary? Hell, so many are now moving to ARM or RISC based CPU's. x86 still dominates servers I know, but in Russia I would wager that simply Elbrus E2K architecture is good enough for HTC environment.

Making a X86 compliant processor carries extra baggage in terms of transistors to get that compatibility level.
Russia already has issues producing processors with decent performance in their factories as is.
And X86 is a moving target, since they keep changing the architecture and putting more crap on it, and the whole thing is covered with patents. One of the reasons the Soviet semi industry collapsed after the breakdown was because they couldn't sell processors in the market which were covered by Western patents. They cloned a bunch of stuff they couldn't sell.

Some bigger news then:

Ministry of Digital Resources: The authorities will provide large amounts of money to support Russian developers of RISC-V processors

During an open interview at the industry conference "CNews FORUM Cases 2022", the head of the Ministry of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev expressed confidence that the state will soon allocate a serious budget to support domestic processor developments based on the open RISC-V architecture. According to the minister, Russian software developers will soon have to take care of compatibility with them.

RISC-V as a priority
The Russian authorities will provide serious financial support to developers of processors based on the RISC-V architecture. Confidence in this was expressed by the head of the Ministry of Digital DevelopmentMaksut Shadayev, during an open interview with the Editor-in-Chief of CNewsAlexandra Kiryanova at the industry conference "CNews FORUM Cases" held on June 7, 2022.

"I think that now the main efforts will be focused on designing and developing our own processor based on an open architecture, I think this will be a priority," he said.

At the same time, the minister added that in the near future, Russian software companies will be focused by the authorities on ensuring compatibility of their products with promising processor developments based on RISC-V. "Of course, it is a step-by-step process; this is not a one-time process," Shadaev stressed.

Discussing this topic, the minister answered the question of whether it is possible to expect legislative relief for assemblers and developers of Russian hardware in terms of their free use of foreign chips. (Since 2021, the Ministry of Digital Development is engaged in ensuring and generating demand for domestic civil radio-electronic products.)

Recall that at the moment, government agencies and partly companies with state participation are required to buy only Russian IT equipment. And to be considered Russian "hardware", according to the current rules Storage systems should be built on domestic processors from January 1, 2021. From July 1, 2021 — laptops, tablets and pocket PCs (including those that combine the functions of a mobile phone) and electronic notebooks. Starting from January 1, 2022, domestic processors were supposed to appear in servers, desktop PCs and monoblocks, input or output devices, monitors and projectors, printers, scanners and faxes, as well as solid-state drives and motherboards.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade in the second half of 2021, due to the introduction of the so-called point system for assessing the level of "Russianness" of equipment, planned to move these deadlines, but none of the versions of the legislative amendments developed by it has yet been adopted.

After February 24, 2022, the market situation has developed in such a way that Western chips (Intel, AMD, etc.) in the near future will theoretically be available through parallel imports (deliveries to Russia without the consent of the copyright holders), while the availability of Russian chips is completely uncertain. All our processor developments were focused on direct production at TSMC's Taiwan factory, which at the end of February 2022, in the context of Western sanctions, completely stopped production and supply of its products to our country.

Russia currently does not have its own small-nanometer production facilities. Transferring the production of our chips from TSMC to friendly countries is a long process, and for some architectures it is very dubious. Many domestic developments are built on the licensed ARM architecture, which means they are sanctioned vulnerable.

RISC-V Features

The open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture is highly attractive in the world due to the lack of license fees that are traditional when using most other processor architectures, including the aforementioned ARM.

RISC-V is supported and developed by the non-profit organization RISC-V International, which has more than 1,000 members in 50 countries. RISC-V processors are widely used in microcontrollers. For example, Western Digital supplies more than 2 billion RISC-V controllers in its storage devices every year.

Who is involved in RISC-V in Russia

At the moment, at least two Russian companies have managed to make certain steps towards developing chips based on the RISC-V architecture. One of them is Baikal Electronics, the developer of the Baikal processor line. In September 2021, its parent company, the Warton Group, acquired a 34% stake in Cloudbear, a St. Petersburg-based developer of microprocessor cores. It is considered one of the two most advanced companies in Russia that develop processor IP blocks based on the RISC-V command system.

Baikal Electronics announced its interest in RISC-V in early July 2021, commenting on its new product strategy approved by the Board of Directors in June 2021.

Another Russian company developing open architecture is KNS Group, which is part of X Holding and produces computing equipment under its own Yadro brand. Since the end of October 2019, KNS Group has owned 51% of Syntacore — the second most well-known domestic developer of processor IP blocks based on the RISC-V command system.

Syntacore, like Cloudbear, is based in St. Petersburg and is also a resident of Skolkovo (through a subsidiary). Both companies are well-known both in Russia and abroad.

In the summer of 2021, CNews learned that KNS Group is going to release a line of processors of its own architecture, in which about 6 billion rubles of company funds will be invested. When developing its own processor architecture, it was going to use RISC-V.

Source: https://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2022-06-10_mintsifry_vlasti_krupno_podderzhat

This article I want to point out to the attention of Lancelot:

https://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2022-06-09_huawei_vtajne_vvel_antirossijskie

Huawei secretly imposed anti-Russian sanctions. The company's stores in Russia began to close one by one

This is why I said Russia cannot and will not use China as a destination for technology. Chinese companies, even if sanctioned themselves, are reluctant to work in Russia. While I figure Russia should bring this to the attention of the Chinese authorities, I doubt much will be resolved. Hence why Russia needs to build its own tech and not rely on partners like China which are not reliable.

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.

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.

Judging how the ministry of industry and trade are putting money towards thr equipment needed to produce the chips at home goes against what you think what will happen. And while the Chinese state and people are on russias side, the companies are not.  So no company in China will risk making chips and selling to Russia over the lucrative market that is the west at current market.

Things may change in the future and Russia can split production between domestic and China. Until then, it won't happen.

Russian customs is already making a large order for Russian made CPU's and requirements are 4 cores minimum and 1.1Ghz min speed (odd requirements but whatever). Of course it will be using older lithography tech but if it works it works. There is a limit to the need of newer chips and I mentioned an example prior.

sepheronx wrote:Judging how the ministry of industry and trade are putting money towards thr equipment needed to produce the chips at home goes against what you think what will happen. And while the Chinese state and people are on russias side, the companies are not.  So no company in China will risk making chips and selling to Russia over the lucrative market that is the west at current market.

Things may change in the future and Russia can split production between domestic and China. Until then, it won't happen.

Russian customs is already making a large order for Russian made CPU's and requirements are 4 cores minimum and 1.1Ghz min speed (odd requirements but whatever).  Of course it will be using older lithography tech but if it works it works.  There is a limit to the need of newer chips and I mentioned an example prior.

The Chinese companies will do what is economically most beneficial for them. If they have a large exposure to the West they will try to comply with the sanctions regime to not lose that business. Can you really blame them? A lot of Russian companies also tried to comply with Crimean derived US sanctions. Heck, they are still doing it to this day, removing US sanctioned persons on this latest round from corporate boards in Russia. But there are plenty of companies in China with little or no international exposure. For every large international company, there might be dozens or hundreds of mid sized or small sized companies who work for them, who do not sell direct to the public even. Even some Chinese companies with large international exposure, like Alibaba, did not pull out of the Russian market because it made up a large amount of their profits abroad. So it will be evaluated on a case by case basis.

With the case of chips, the problem is not anything to do with Western customers for their product, but the fact any such Chinese company will likely be using Western supplied tools and materials, and that supply can be cut and kill the company basically. Which is why the Chinese are working on their own tools and materials. They already have 100% Chinese i-line and KrF tools and materials. This is the same level of equipment as the one Mikron and Angstrem-T operates which can work up to 90nm. You should see this happen for ArF at 28nm and lower over the next two years. Then it is the matter of getting it all operating in one fab smoothly and making a Western sanctions proof production line.

As for that requirement you mentioned, it should be easy to achieve with production of the MCST R-1000 processor at Mikron or Angstrem-T if they want to. It was originally designed for TSMC 90nm process. But it has roughly those specifications and can likely be easily ported over. Another option would be making a RISC-V processor design of similar specification.

And guess what there is no way the Russian semi fabs will be operating without Chinese supplied materials. Since Russian industry currently cannot even manufacture 200mm wafers of required quality. Only smaller ones for older processes. China has several such suppliers. Some can do silicon wafers up to 450mm size. Photoresist, same deal, several Chinese companies can make KrF photoresist. None that I know of in Russia. Russia was importing all this crap from Europe and now it is all sanctioned and banned. Good luck trying to make omelets without eggs. This is the problem the Chinese have been facing for a long time already.

It is a bit of a contradiction though... Russia previously got chips made in Taiwan because they could not justify the cost of making them for themselves because the number they were making would be too small to justify the cost...

But now that all competition has been removed from the Russian market then the potential market for Russian made products has exploded to the entire market share, but the production of the chips they need to service the market has been closed off to them.

Sounds like the solution is to develop their own chip production capacity and start looking to other markets to export to like China and India... there are 100 million people in Indonesia alone... creating Apple equivalent hardware without the bullshit spyware and short life batteries could be a way forward for several Russian companies, but they will need new CPUs and new cameras... lots of new technology needs to be gotten to production level... when you are competing on your own market with Apple and other big companies then it is hard, but with less competition in your home market it makes it less risky.

Perhaps the military should find roles for specialist tiny micron low energy chips... perhaps for swarm drones to be made in enormous numbers... a small micron count but relatively simple chip design... you wouldn't need 12 core CPUs with 4Ghz speeds for a swarm drone but a 28nm or smaller size could make it low heat and low current energy efficient that could be made in the enormous numbers needed to make production viable and the swarms effective.

or even go the other way... the same chips power the AI for air defence drone swarms that receive the location and disposition of friendly forces but will search for armed combantants on friendly and enemy territory and automatically attack enemy armour or aircraft when it stumbles upon it...

lancelot wrote:
With the case of chips, the problem is not anything to do with Western customers for their product, but the fact any such Chinese company will likely be using Western supplied tools and materials, and that supply can be cut and kill the company basically. Which is why the Chinese are working on their own tools and materials. They already have 100% Chinese i-line and KrF tools and materials. This is the same level of equipment as the one Mikron and Angstrem-T operates which can work up to 90nm. You should see this happen for ArF at 28nm and lower over the next two years. Then it is the matter of getting it all operating in one fab smoothly and making a Western sanctions proof production line.

As for that requirement you mentioned, it should be easy to achieve with production of the MCST R-1000 processor at Mikron or Angstrem-T if they want to. It was originally designed for TSMC 90nm process. But it has roughly those specifications and can likely be easily ported over. Another option would be making a RISC-V processor design of similar specification.

And guess what there is no way the Russian semi fabs will be operating without Chinese supplied materials. Since Russian industry currently cannot even manufacture 200mm wafers of required quality. Only smaller ones for older processes. China has several such suppliers. Some can do silicon wafers up to 450mm size. Photoresist, same deal, several Chinese companies can make KrF photoresist. None that I know of in Russia. Russia was importing all this crap from Europe and now it is all sanctioned and banned. Good luck trying to make omelets without eggs. This is the problem the Chinese have been facing for a long time already.

What is the deal with 65 nm process, as I've read that Mikron should be able to make those chips, as well, now?

caveat emptor wrote:

lancelot wrote:
With the case of chips, the problem is not anything to do with Western customers for their product, but the fact any such Chinese company will likely be using Western supplied tools and materials, and that supply can be cut and kill the company basically. Which is why the Chinese are working on their own tools and materials. They already have 100% Chinese i-line and KrF tools and materials. This is the same level of equipment as the one Mikron and Angstrem-T operates which can work up to 90nm. You should see this happen for ArF at 28nm and lower over the next two years. Then it is the matter of getting it all operating in one fab smoothly and making a Western sanctions proof production line.

As for that requirement you mentioned, it should be easy to achieve with production of the MCST R-1000 processor at Mikron or Angstrem-T if they want to. It was originally designed for TSMC 90nm process. But it has roughly those specifications and can likely be easily ported over. Another option would be making a RISC-V processor design of similar specification.

And guess what there is no way the Russian semi fabs will be operating without Chinese supplied materials. Since Russian industry currently cannot even manufacture 200mm wafers of required quality. Only smaller ones for older processes. China has several such suppliers. Some can do silicon wafers up to 450mm size. Photoresist, same deal, several Chinese companies can make KrF photoresist. None that I know of in Russia. Russia was importing all this crap from Europe and now it is all sanctioned and banned. Good luck trying to make omelets without eggs. This is the problem the Chinese have been facing for a long time already.

What is the deal with 65 nm process, as I've read that Mikron should be able to make those chips, as well, now?

They can. It's the matter of in how large of batches can they make them. We don't actually know. For all we know they can produce all of Russian needs.

Since the sanctions won't go away, it will be in russias interest to produce everything they need for the chip production. I don't see China filling the need besides either black market supply of older chips or selling their own made processors. But for Russian made stuff, it will require 100% Russian made tooling and supplies as China is refusing so far regardless what some people may think. It's news vs opinions at this point.

It has been pointed out that by Russian mil standards they are at or near 100% self sufficiency in supplies to production of IC. Roscosmos, rosatom, and rostec are suppliers and producers. Since their equipment and resources aren't sold outside, I doubt we will learn much as most is hush hush and shit advertising. None of us here are in the industry or have contacts within these organizations so it's all pure speculation.