from the processing-speeds-from-a-simpler-time dept.
Taiwan Restricts Russia, Belarus to CPUs Under 25 MHz Frequency
From now on, Russian and Belarusian entities can only buy CPUs operating at below 25 MHz and offering performance of up to 5 GFLOPS from Taiwanese companies. This essentially excludes all modern technology, including microcontrollers for more or less sophisticated devices.
[...] Starting today, Russian entities cannot buy chips that meet one of the following conditions from Taiwanese companies, reports DigiTimes:
- Has performance of 5 GFLOPS. To put it into context, Sony's PlayStation 2 released in 2000 had peak performance of around 6.2 FP32 GFLOPS.
- Operates at 25 MHz or higher.
- Has an ALU that is wider than 32 bits.
- Has an external interconnection with a data transfer rate of 2.5 MB/s or over.
- Has more than 144 pins.
- Has basic gate propagation delay time of less than 0.4 nanosecond.
In addition to being unable to buy chips from Taiwanese companies, Russian entities will not be able to get any chip production equipment from Taiwan, which includes scanners, scanning electron microscopes, and all other types of semiconductor tools that can be used to make chips locally or perform reverse engineering (something that the country pins a lot of hopes on).
Also at Wccftech.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by pkrasimirov on Friday June 03 2022, @09:09AM (6 children)
How fast is a dishwasher CPU?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @10:17AM (1 child)
Good old https://www.mouser.com/c/semiconductors/embedded-processors-controllers/microcontrollers-mcu/8-bit-microcontrollers-mcu/?q=Z80 [mouser.com] - @50 MHz for $10.
Or $2.50 @16 MHz with 32kB flash and 768 B of internal memory [mouser.com]
Otherwise, for a decent dishwasher, an Arduino would suffice.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Friday June 03 2022, @04:08PM
Ah thank you, that means not even dishwashers for Russia, sans the loot.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @10:17AM (1 child)
Some GE dishwashers horizontally spray water while rotating at 60 RPMs (1 Hz).
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2022, @09:40PM
Russian dishwasher rotates YOU.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @10:38AM
cute.
like the programmers who filled up supposedly russian cities with AC machines (in half-life "alyx").
listen carefully: in Russia and Belarus women wash dishes manually, because it's a woman's job to take care of the home.
she should take pride in washing dishes by hand and preparing 3 meals a day and everything else, while the brave men go out and build the glorious future.
she should be thankful if she gets a washing machine for clothes (well, not a new washing machine because they don't have the chips anymore, but anyway).
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday June 03 2022, @11:46AM
My parent is not flamebait!
Not all of us are privy to all these technical details.
At one time, that may well have been a question I would have been likely to ask.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Funny) by SomeGuy on Friday June 03 2022, @11:25AM (7 children)
So THAT is why IBM PC clone 386 25MHZ machines are selling for so much on eBay now. :P
But really, why the exact 25mhz cutoff, rather than just saying "none".
Welcome to New Soviet Russia, where Windows For Workgroups 3.11 is state of the art.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday June 03 2022, @11:34AM (3 children)
A 25MHz 486 is twice as fast as a 25MHz 386 and it comes with a built-in FPU, and L1 cache.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Friday June 03 2022, @12:26PM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by toddestan on Saturday June 04 2022, @05:58AM (1 child)
The restriction on the number of pins could matter for a few cases. For example, as mentioned you can get a 486 at 25 MHz, but the 486 has more than 144 pins so that's out. So a 386 it is, then.
Still, I agree that cutoffs seem pretty arbitrary and silly. And when it comes down to it, for something like most weapons systems a 386 is going to be plenty good enough anyway.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by FatPhil on Saturday June 04 2022, @09:40AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Friday June 03 2022, @12:02PM
For a long time, I designed a lot of my stuff around the 386SX. I seem to recall 16 MHz.
I did not need a fan on these, and I could use all my old Borland C++ dos tools. ISA motherboard. And drive a monochrome and VGA graphic display on the same motherboard .
I was really proud of the stuff I was able to make, and gladly tossed Phar-Lap and keeping track of segment registers when I finally switched to the 68000.
I had dreams of building a 68000 ISA board, but never did.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Saturday June 04 2022, @04:35AM (1 child)
I suspect it's to still allow for extracting Russian money through the sale of embedded microcontrollers and the appliances that contain them, while disallowing anything that would be particularly useful for modern weapons, vehicles, or general purpose computing.
I'm a bit out of touch, but I suspect very few appliances use chips faster than that.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday June 06 2022, @02:22PM
That's my thoughts as well. Anything that could potentially be used in modern weapons development is out. All things considered though, you can do amazing things with pretty low tech.
Like make it to the Moon.
https://newatlas.com/apollo-11-guidance-computer/59766/ [newatlas.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @11:49AM (7 children)
I predict a small upturn in sales of modern processors to, for example, India. Where they will be transshipped to Russian "critical industry" (military production).
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Friday June 03 2022, @12:17PM (6 children)
The amusing thing is that Russia considers, and specifically names, Taiwan (Тайвань) in its list of enemies for their present anti-Russian stance here: http://government.ru/docs/44745/
Yet ... it doesn't recognise Taiwan as a country, it claims it's just a part of China (see the parentheses after Taiwan above).
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @02:19PM
Plot twist... Russia invades Taiwan. What now, China?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 03 2022, @03:29PM (4 children)
China has been very specifically fence straddling this whole time. They haven't said anything one way or the other but as of right now they are abiding by the sanctions against Russia.
Yes that could change but I'm pretty sure China realizes the US has more money than Russia and would prefer to keep our market vs Russia's...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @05:13PM
China used to have pretty close relationship with Ukraine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @05:28PM (2 children)
It's in China's interests to see Russia collapse because they have territorial ambitions in Siberia and it will make taking over much easier.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday June 04 2022, @09:28AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2022, @09:43PM
Oh darn, nukes. Forgot about them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @12:13PM (4 children)
that's gonna be one slow ass superyacht...
(Score: 4, Funny) by FatPhil on Friday June 03 2022, @12:18PM (3 children)
Is this what the Roe vs. Wade fuss is all about?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 03 2022, @03:31PM
Pretty sure that fuss is about making it illegal to break eggs in the first place!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @05:36PM
if the situation of german engineering during WW2 was any indicator, scarcity breeds greatness (or nothing at all)? maybe some operatif paperclips too ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2022, @10:50AM
I see what you did...
Double entendre...roe --> fish eggs --> caviar.
(Score: 2) by progo on Friday June 03 2022, @12:18PM (10 children)
Perhaps this will trigger a glorious second 8-bit/16-bit microcomputer revolution. Coming soon: A sequel to Tetris that's move addictive, and something you never would have imagined.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Friday June 03 2022, @12:31PM
Everything is beginning to make more sense - those damn Finnskis are trying to nuzzle their way back into the Glorious Russian Empire.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @12:35PM (6 children)
Better yet, how about a 1024-bit wide 25 MHz cpu.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @01:06PM (2 children)
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Z-80's.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 03 2022, @05:23PM
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @08:46PM
http://michaeljmahon.com/AppleCrateII.html [michaeljmahon.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by drussell on Friday June 03 2022, @01:57PM (2 children)
The posted exclusion list includes all CPUs with wider than 32-bit ALUs (Arithmetic Logic Unit) so your 1024-bit CPU wouldn't be allowed to be exported.
Now, on the other hand, what about bit-slice processors? You could stack a whole bunch of 74181 chips (4-bit slice ALUs) together to make a 1024-bit CPU once you imported the 4-bit chips. If they were still made, that is...
Now, what about large FPGAs where you can program in an arbitrary CPU? Are those banned?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @03:28PM
Do you know any "large" FPGAs with 144 or fewer pins? Big FPGA chips usually have upward of a thousand pins. The propagation time restriction is almost certainly going to come into play if you want to get any decent performance.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday June 03 2022, @04:05PM
At what clock speed? Consider an add. After the operation each 74181 needs to propagate the carry bit upstream, and the chip upstream has to wait for that carry bit. For 8 or 16 chips that delay is fine, but for 256 I suspect things get dicey.
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 2) by corey on Saturday June 04 2022, @12:01AM (1 child)
Apply constraints and people will work within those to achieve outcomes. I predict Russian software, be it embedded control code, application stuff, etc, will soon become a whole lot more efficient. Maybe they’ll go back to coding in assembly.
You see what those demoscene guys do with a 16kb executable, it’s impressive.
Russia took over the Peugeot factory to make cars again but one wonders with what. Back to 1950s distributors, carburettors, all mechanical? Could be interesting to watch.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Saturday June 04 2022, @03:17AM
And I predict Russia will just buy CPUs from sources other than Taiwan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants [wikipedia.org]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by datapharmer on Friday June 03 2022, @07:46PM (1 child)
They just have to reconnect the L1 bridges with a pencil after import.
(Score: 1) by liar on Friday June 03 2022, @10:02PM
I cheated... I used connective ink.
Noli nothis permittere te terere.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by echostorm on Friday June 03 2022, @09:16PM (2 children)
And this kind of situation is why we need to seriously cut back on the amount of outsourcing we do.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 03 2022, @09:49PM (1 child)
The damage is done. And the traitors who sold us out have retired, or are retiring soon. I guess you could still hunt Kissinger down, and whip his ass.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2022, @09:46PM
What damage? This is what victory looks like. Enjoy.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 03 2022, @09:48PM (1 child)
Taiwan won't sell modern processors to Russia. But, you can bet your arse that both China and India will do proxy purchases for Russia, if the price is right.
Oh wait - isn't that like, half the world, population wise? And, Russia is pretty chummy with some Arabic countries, like Syria. Turkey would swap CPUs for another missile system, for certain.
I really don't think the sanctions are worth all that much, TBH.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @11:05PM
China, maybe, but it doesn't need to. China has its own fabs [semi.org], about two generation behind, but those are good enough for Russia.
India? Nope, it would burn quad [wikipedia.org] bridges and India needs some backing with the China skirmishing its northern borders. BRICS [wikipedia.org] is slowly strangled by Winnie-the-Pooh
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2022, @05:15AM
Counter-punch: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-hits-hobbled-chip-market-limiting-export-noble-gases [zerohedge.com]
If Taiwan won't sell Russia chips, Russia won't sell Taiwan the noble gases used to make the chips. I'd bet Russia will still sell them to China, though.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jb on Saturday June 04 2022, @05:31AM
Not sure if they would meet the 144pin limit or not (can't remember how many pins they had), but I seem to recall having no trouble at all running businesses on the sun4 / sun4c (first two generations of sparc32) architectures, many moons ago, mostly at around the 25MHz mark. The functionality we had then was not all that different to today. And the uptime was much greater than we see today. Of course that was only about 3 decades ago. Others were doing the same with even more drastically limited resources in the 3 decades prior to that...
Only difference is, today most software is horribly bloated, mostly due a of combination of laziness (couldn't be bothered being more efficient) and unreasonable budgets / deadlines (probably the more common cause).
Imagine if, all of a sudden, everyone had to work with resources of the kind to which Taiwan is now limiting Russia. How many of today's programmers could actually keep their jobs? And how much more would those who can be worth to their employers? And how much more valuable would efficient software become?
Imagine a computing industry with economics more aligned to the 1960s era ... but with today's pervasiveness of computing applications.
Almost makes me wish that they'd impose the same restrictions on those of us here in the West too...