Russian Microchips Collapse? 

In Russia, we had significant problems with semiconductors. Fortunately, after dismantling many Leopard tanks and other Western armored vehicles, we were able to salvage their components and extract the chips inside. This allowed us to manufacture washing machines and dishwashers.

As someone who lives in Russia for 20+ years as a foreigner, I can say that there are a lot of Soviet technologies that are lying around waiting to be picked up. I have been in some science facilities that didn't have funding after the collapse of the USSR, but are now being rebuilt and put in action due to the sanctions and import bans. If we are talking about military technology, these are the places where Russians really excel in making simple, but very effective and most importantly cheap solutions.

The fact that you are willing to admit your mistakes and make corrections makes you better than most if not all major news outlets.

We should also recognize that consumer chips in sizes like 5nm is not needed in the majority of military hardware like a missile system. 64ns is good enough.

I appreciate your honesty and humility. We all NEED people like you, in government and news media.

Textbook example of how to be a reliable channel 👍👍👍

Getting things wrong is human, but admitting it, is divine; which is something western msm and some of the big channels have forgotten.

In the age of misinformation and unaccountability, you're a breath of fresh air.

No other channel makes a correction video, this why this is best channel on RU-vid.

Well, in video in part about Elbrus you show the really really old version of CPU. The newest model of Elbrus is "Elbrus-16s" aka on Russian "Эльбрус-16с". It has 16 cores, support DDR4 and so on. And also developed on 16 nanometers.

Something tells me this channel will never make a 40 minute rant calling people who call out obvious mistakes propagandists

65nm chips are really completely adequate for the vast majority of military embedded applications. Especially for the radiation resistant types that are commonly used in space. The problem I would see for Russia is keeping the fabs running efficiently over time without imports.

Actually, videos/statements like these are the MOST IMPORTANT ONES. Admitting mistakes is EXTREMELY UNDERVALUED. .. and people that "don't make mistakes" are not to be trusted.

Despite all of the doom and gloom NY western analysts the Russian weapons manufacturers have no issues supplying their troops and eliminating NATO weapons.

I said it before, you usually are so accurate that your credit is good. Videos like this doesn't hurt your credibility but improves it since it shows that accuracy and facts govern this channel.

Stalin behind hostile to computers is actually a misnomer. There were signifcant factions within the ministries which were squabbling over how computers should be used and particularly their use in Gosplan, the central planning agency. It is a very deep topic but suffice to say that the popular rejection of computer technology during the Stalin era was actually driven mostly by journalists for various media outlets which latched onto the idea of it being bourgeious which then led public opinion to reject it.

8s is 16 nanometer And it’s a completely other architecture It handles instruction sets that are multiple times longer than x86 even. This allows it to run at lower clock speed. It’s similar to avx 512 instruction Set for Intel. But Elbrus is 1024. I don’t have all the numbers now. So I’ll stay away from concrete claims. Elbrus 8s can ein modern games But it is made to mostly run enterprise workerloads. Elbrus 8s is 2021 design. If you are interested, I can help you get more information about this.

Mega respect. Everyone makes mistakes, not everyone admits to them. Keep it on Millenium 7.

Baikal-M (2019-2022) - 28 nm Baikal-S (2021) - 16 nm (production delayed due to sanctions) Elbrus-8S (introduced 2014, serial production since 2016) - 28 nm Of course, the line of processors is much larger. I just showed that two companies produce chips with different technical processes. The new samples presented СPU at 16/12nm and even 6nm, but production is not possible due to Taiwan sanctions after 2022.

Thank you for your hard work and honesty, respectful, and neutral approach to the content you create. Very much appreciated in a world where respect seems to be a dying concept.

This is hands down one of the most professional channels on RU-vid. I salute you for your honesty and humility and thank you for your excellent content.

Montenegro is so pretty. Really appreciate you admitting your errors. A sign of a professional and not one pretending to be one. Which is 99% of the MSM these days.

I'm not an expert by far but the argument that a country practically only needs "good enough" chips to run its production industry, calculations and weaponry can be called self sufficient seems logical. The problem with "traditional" chip design is, that the denser you build them the more fragile they become. In order to integrate chips with similar output as 12nm and below into a weapon or industry you better develop a completely new, rugged chip design where nm do not play a role at all.

I love how much you devote to error corrections. So many other channels just make a comment or small post that never reaches people. You make whole videos. A most informative video M7.

You were man enough to "fess up" to your errors, as we say in Texas. That deserves a 👍. Double 👍👍 for the additional info on on Russians seeking a different approach from current lithographic tech.

I tip my hat to you sir! I am a follower from back then when you only had a few hundred subscribers, I started to avoid your videos recently because it seemed like at some point you became biased, but I was wrong. You are a reliable source of non-biased information. Keep up the good work!!!!!

I wonder if the strategic cooperation deal between Russia and China will include free sharing of knowledge between their engineers so they can achieve their common goal of self-sufficiency in microelectronics faster. Knowledge sharing between brains from different cultural education systems has always been synergetic in Science and Technology.

You're probably correct that Russia is 10-15 years behind in the latest microchips, and although Russia is trying to catch up, Russia can already produce most of the chips it needs for the military application. Civilian application chips can be easily imported from China and the grey market. Russia's tight chip industry integration and the focus on analog circuits with a huge body of knowledge in that field makes allows Russia to produce some very specialized and very capable circuits!

That's why I consider this channel to be one of the best. You explain and discuss things that are completely out of my professional background, and with videos like this I know I can trust the information because it's curated in the content and the sources like a fellow scientist would do, or an engineer, or...I was about to say a journalist, but... well, journalism is not supposed to be taken seriously anymore. Kudos to you, thank you for the clarifications and... keep It up! Going back to the video, it would be interesting to know the status of the European silicon industry at this point, how does it compare to the Russian's? Are we on the right track or are we completely dependent from the USA and Taiwan as well?

I worked in the defense industry in America, and the private sectors chips were always more advanced! One of the reasons is that we needed the chips to be radiation hardened. The smaller nm chips don't harden well for military applications, so 28nm or higher is fine.

YOU, sir, are a TRUE academic. This is the mark of a gentleman.

State department boomers don't get it about electronics. One thing that struck me with all the 'russians can't make chips so they can't make missiles' arguments is the assumption that you need a state of the art semiconductor product to run a missile or a drone. In comparison to an NVIDIA chip a real military component can be orders of magnitude less advanced, and absolutely does not require a single digit nm process to get the job done. What it has to be is to be reliable, resistant to electronic warfare measures, run a relatively simple program and get the job done. As of now Russia can make chips capable of achieving all of the above (or import them when it's more convenient).

Thank you, the video was pretty interesting for me to watch as someone who worked in russian microelectronics for about 15 years or so. The break is over, time to go to tear down yet another washing machine to mine some microcontrollers.☺

You have said a few times you believe Sukhoi is creating their own chips, I was surprised you never mentioned that.

Montenegro is a beautiful country with friendly people. My step-fathers best friend was from there. Glad it got the shout out.

Asianometry is an excelent channel. He covers mostly Asia but he really really knows what he's talking about.

You are a rarity, very honest from your side. Kudos to you 👍

My refrigerator and washing machine here in Moscow have not been taken away (yet!) from me by military authority, I do not know if it is an isolated case, on the contrary it reminds me that other such appliances at the home of acquaintances and friends also continue to work, at least here in Moscow. I'm not an expert, maybe that their microchips are too advanced for Kinzhals and other military applications?

Thanks for setting the record straight. This is yet another outstanding video from you.

How did Otis reacted to this new info?. He doesn't appear in this video and I started worrying about his fate. Thank you again for the good job signiore

Love the mention to Asianometry! It's such a great channel

I have extra remarks: * they can get more modern chipmaking equipment from china, including lithography machines * they can get their chips from mainland china * military hardware doesn't really need higher spec chips. the patriot missiles use 90nm chips. * the diameter of the wafers only impact your production rate as you need certain times for exposures, deposition and the other operations, not the type of chips that can be produced, or the node at which they are produced.

At least there's erratum in a timely manner. That put matters in balance. Kudos.

There was a press release recently about a prototype 7nm lithography machine finishing assembly next year.

Excellent.

00:05 Intro 00:10 OTIS make mistake on previous video 00:35 Frre Montenegro! 01:26 Zelenograd 03:03 It is Alive! 06:18 You may want to know 09:15 So.. Outro

This is why I absolute love this channel, always reliable sources and corrections on bad ones.

This channel has quickly become one of, if not my favorite, thanks.

The Russian semiconductor industry has yet to invest in upgrades, which the wafers' limited size indicates. You are correct that lithography is critical. Still, upgrading their entire production line to larger wafer sizes is necessary to have higher chip processing power with any acceptable yield, and, consequently, without these steps, you will have a low output of usable chips. Any upgrade for a complete next-generation production line is an enormous financial burden. This factor was the leading cause of fabless manufacturing, which we observed by TSMC's market domination. As you mentioned, only some designs require complex processors. Thus, older production lines may still fill specific vital military and space applications. Cheers.

I did not see the first video, but this one still contains a number of critical core misconceptions. 1) A microcontroller is not a PC CPU. PC CPUs are configured for operating systems like Windows or MacOS/Linux. Microcontrollers have a completely different, generally smaller microcode set and are used for industrial applications. It is actually fairly unusual to have a PC CPU as part of an industrial control system; older Boeing airplanes use the 386 era Intel CPUs for example (including F22 raptors LOL). 2) Even beyond microcontroller vs. PC CPU - there are also a lot of different variations, particularly when you are talking about military and/or space. Radiation resistance is a big one, as is electromagnetic pulse resistance and durability. 3) Process geometry puts a cap on effective maximum clock speed, but it is a lot higher than most people think. The Intel Pentium 4 - 2003 era - had 1.3 to 3.8 GHz clock speeds even as it was 90 nm and 65 nm. Yes, Intel's process is tuned far more than the typical, but the point is that rated performance is not just a function of process geometry limits. The one thing you should keep in mind when talking about semiconductors - is that the high end represents a high dollar percentage of the market but a low silicon percentage of the market. The notion of any nation with any significant amount of trade, not being able to access "washing machine" microcontrollers or similar semiconductors is ludicrous. There are literally a trillion semiconductors made every year - getting a few million or tens of millions is literally invisible in this gigantic river of silicon.

I can only applaud admitting mistakes. We all make them.

China's SMEE already started mass shipping fully domestic 28nm DUV machines last month (which means that by using multiple pass techniques they can now make 7nm chips at lower yields), also they already can produce some of the crucial components of EUV lithography, such as the light source and the dual work table. So I bet that by 2027 or 2028 China will already have domestic EUV.

4:04 You've made another mistake. The last serialized processor is Elbrus-8SV, it has been in production since 2020. Even more advanced processors are already being planned and developed.

thanks for the update

Thanks for this erratum video that speaks a lot about your intellectual integrity. Please keep that good spirit that we miss so much today.

Its our Honor and Privilege as viewers to watch someone humble enough to correct its own errata! Thanks for your diligence.

If we are talking about EUV then ASML (with Carl Zeiss mirrors) is the only game in town, but those machines are only needed for 7nm and beyond. 28nm and even 14/12nm does not need that level sophistication and there are multiple vendors/sources to acquire them; like from China. Even 7nm is possible without EUV via multi patterning. The node names at 45nm and beyond are mostly marketing anyway, denoting the smallest component of the transistor (in some cases not even that), the actual transistor are lot bigger in all cases. There is also a scaling issue, IO stooped around 14 -> 7nm, SRAM (cache) around 4nm, logic still scales. The only somewhat objective metrics is the million transistors per sqr mm, but that is also depending on the design. As the nodes improves the transistor design needs to improve as the electrons starting to quantum tunnel through the insulator layers preventing it to function or limit clock speeds. What is often missed that the machine itself is not enough, you need the appropriate software for design and testing and the FPGA hardware to validate. All of these requires years if not decades to develop from scratch.

Anyone who is willing to admit mistakes and correct them is a reliable person. Everyone makes mistakes, what matters is how you react to them Your response is the correct one. I trust your channel more, not less after this.

Thank you for correcting the errors in the previous vid. I hate to be that guy, but there's one more: the node is not really "a characteristic dimension of the electronic components built into the chips, measured in nm". Mind you, it used to be, and for many Russian processes it might still be, since they're quite old, but that's no longer true for cutting-edge processes used by Intel, TSMC, Samsung, etc. The WikiChip article puts it very well: "Historically, the process node name referred to a number of different features of a transistor including the gate length as well as M1 half-pitch. Most recently, due to various marketing and discrepancies among foundries, the number itself has lost the exact meaning it once held. Recent technology nodes such as 22 nm, 16 nm, 14 nm, and 10 nm refer purely to a specific generation of chips made in a particular technology. It does not correspond to any gate length or half pitch. Nevertheless, the name convention has stuck and it's what the leading foundries call their nodes. Since around 2017 node names have been entirely overtaken by marketing with some leading-edge foundries using node names ambiguously to represent slightly modified processes. Additionally, the size, density, and performance of the transistors among foundries no longer matches between foundries. For example, Intel's 10 nm is comparable to foundries 7 nm while Intel's 7 nm is comparable to foundries 5 nm." en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node

3:46 Correction: Elbrus is not SPARK-based arch, it's VLIW version of old soviet arch. Though MCST did make SPARKs in the past. Also only few Elbrus models are produced on Micron, most of them are made on TSMC. And 800 MHz is not that bad considering parallelism of this processor.

Your English is superb for a non-native speaker especially given that you tend to focus on technical subjects where the language can be a bit different than standard English, but at 7:55 perhaps as a result of "help" from auto-correct, you have bouquet manufacturers where I think you probably intended to write boutique manufacturers. I am assuming from the context that you meant small specialized producers of microchips rather than producers of small arrangements of flowers. A minor error, the intended meaning is still clear, and the idea of high tech Russian flower arrangers did make me smile.

Those Angstrom op-amps will sound exactly the same as any other modern op amps. Anything equal to NE5534 or better will sound the same in a blind test.

It's a big man who publicly admits his mistakes.

I have no idea what the correct info is but just the fact that u openly talked about your mistake and recieved criticism in such a way that u made it work for u is great, inspiring and something to admire. Good work sir!

No problem man...."Only two class of people never make mistakes...the people in the mother´s body and the people in the grave" Ho Chi Minh Vietnamese leader

For those looking to get a deeper understanding on these issues Asianometry has helped me understand so much about Semi conductors, super conductors, chips, business relationships and how Taiwan factors into geopolitics as the global silicon tech leader. He has videos on all the major players in the industry and he's also made videos on lots of other subjects too

Some time in the early 2000s i was still a computer science student and I was at my first microprocessor class, so as the teacher was talking about the usual tech i asked, sir these are all American architecture processors, and they are all from the cold war era, so what about Russians, are there any examples about their designs we can study? And he said plainly no there are none, i asked no as there is none, or no we don't have access to that information? He said no they just used American tech. Well I already figured he is trying to rid himself of my nuisance so i didn't risk pestering him any further about his ignorance on the matter... now 20 years later this video gave me the answer i was looking for, actually this is perhaps the best answer i could get and since i still had that question stacked in my query queue 😉 i just get the same satisfaction from learning this information fresh as it can get, thanks sensei, you're the best 👌😀👍

I’m extremely impressed with your corrections - the source reliability that I’d rate you is even stronger now. Your initial video did make me question what I thought I knew of Russia’s chip industry and capabilities - this video helped harmonize the disparity and you did clarify some things I wasn’t as aware of. Always appreciate your content! May I recommend having guests for interviews on some of these topics, especially hypersonics, air defense, anything aviation related, drone tech moving at the pace of warfare etc. one thought, the explosion of the kakhovka dam - is it possible the very same drone tech used in the most recent attack on the Kerch Bridge was first user on this dam? Assuming the dam was in disrepair and stressed due to near record low water levels months earlier, then record high levels just before the explosion. And little evidence would be left of the drone after the breach. And I think the video released of the explosion could fail completely to identify a low flying, or partially submerged drone. I dunno just a thought at this very moment.

Agreed It's Wise To Check 10 Times Before Taking Google's Contents Feedbacks As Truthful, Accurate & Not Biased

You have provided me with a deep admiration for the beauty of Montenegro

Always love to watch your videos🔥 Keep up the excellent work.

You make good videos, I watch them over again because they are that good. I rarely do that with other videos. Balanced, informative, humorous. Cheers

Very interesting, i am very interested to see what their Semiconductor capabilities are, its clear that by now they understand the importance of improving these capabilities.

The Soviets did very interesting experiments with ternary computing in the 60s. Turns out, as Soviet mathematicians discovered, base 3 is the ideal base for computing, with base 2 (our regular binary) being the runner-up and base-4 the 3rd place (in the USA Donald Knuth proposed computing in base 2i, i.e. imaginary quaternary, has some advantages for processing comprex numbers). Sadly, these experiments were deprived of funds and to date nobody has started this research again

Just a refreshing change to get straight information about a given topic. Wicked work!

Thank you for the microchip lecture. I read many boring electronic books and I did not learn much. Your videos are very educational for busy professionals.

Small correction: Bouquet S/B Boutique. Excellent as usual.

Best information that I was able to find online about the current russian electronic industry, thanks

Check, verify and open for correction makes you different from the rest. Keep up your analysis and reports, it is interesting and truly appreciated.

Humbly correcting yourself is a quality greatly appreciated! Keep up the good work!

I use a high performance PC from year 2010😅 works good enough, not planning on upgrading, only adding SSDs and HDDs. Cutting edge tech is only needed to play modern games/ 3d design /4k video editing etc.

good work mate

Thank you - I am a newish subscriber - I really appreciate your work. 👋 from Sydney Australia.

I love you man. You are great. I am so glad I am subscribed to this channel more than any other. Never change!

Great content as always

Thank you for another demonstration of your honesty and integrity. We all have issues with sources, especially when researching information for a side interest, as opposed to our professional work.

Must add that Montenegro is extremely beautiful! ❤

He that humbles himself will be exalted.

Ahh nice i was one of the commenters that pointed out the error in your previous statement, good on you for making an entire video to correct it bravo! There's a lot of disinfo around and an agenda to portray Russia as weak in every capacity. Everything Russia needs for their weapons systems are made native in Russia, some things like optics can be foreign but not necessary for basic operations as they have their own versions. Now that the west has pushed both Russia and China together it would be possible for Russia to benefit from Chinese chip making capabilities. I mean the republic of China (Taiwan) is the #1 producer of chips in the world and all their engineers are ethnically Chinese so... The Chinese version of TSMC is SMIC and was founded by 50+ former TSMC engineers. Asianometry channel has good details on the semiconductor industry for all of Asia highly recommend. Russia is behind the curve yes, but not to the extent of 300nm process (Taiwan is on a 4nm node) and China has about 300 ASML machines as well (but lots of drama regarding sanctions). They have developed their own 28nm process not using EUV due to all this hoopla. Russia could probably have their chips fabbed in China if things get out of control and more sanctions are enforced but some companies arent abiding by these sanctions. Micron (memory chips) for example, was the first to pull out manufacturing from China as part of these semiconductor sanctions, so China banned micron chips in many sectors citing security vulnerabilities causing Micron to freak out and now invest another $600 million into Chinese production against the wishes of the US administration... Biden's handlers have since pushed an E.O. stating no further tech investment in China is possible, but China must not ban the sale of any US chips into the country so this bullshit will go on until the senile old bastard dies or gets kicked out of office (not going to happen with the Ukraine money train moving).

Congrats for the unbiased research for the truth

Mistakes and oversights happen to everyone, thanks for the update and mea culpa.

Thank You for the Information you let us know about. I always enjoy your presentations.

Montenegro is quite a beauty !

We appreciate your views and the fact you can go back and issue corrections

Everybody makes mistakes but only a brave man with morals have in it in him to accept that publicly🙌🙌

Your integrity is why I watch. God bless.

Oh no, whatever are they gonna use in their tactical Shovels now?

As Grandfather Lenin used to say, "we will go the other way." Instead of pointless attempts to catch up with the leaders in the production of traditional microchips, it is better to create something fundamentally new, such as a quantum processor, and in one jerk break into the leaders. It's not a fact that we will succeed, but we will try anyway..

Thanks for your honesty. We already have plenty of excessively biased news sources, glad your trying not to be one of them 😊

Elbrus s16 clock is 2Ghz not 800Mhz and baikal elecronics production is 90nm, more than enough for technological independence