Producers of Elbrus and Baikal chips are refusing to ship them:
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February led to sanctions against the nation and companies such as Intel and AMD stopping sales of their CPUs. Taiwan also halted exports of high-end chips to Russia, meaning Russian firms that relied on TSMC and others to produce domestically designed chips have been left empty handed.
[...] "We would have much more this year if those batches of Russian processors, Elbrus, Baikal, which was ordered and produced, were shipped. Intellectual rights and all documentation are Russian, but, based on topological standards, there are no such production facilities in Russia, and all this was ordered from foreign factories," said Shadayev.
[...] "Foreign manufacturers that produce processors based on blueprints of Russian developers refused to fulfill orders in 2022, including shipping already produced chips," said Shadayev.
Russia had been looking to the Chinese gray market for its chip imports, but around 40% of them were found to be defective. There was also the option of China's own Loongson CPUs, but the Asian nation has banned their export as China wants them for its own military-industrial complex.
(Score: 2) by fraxinus-tree on Thursday December 22, @01:39PM (1 child)
Anyone remember CoCom? I remember it very well because I was at the wrong side back then.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday December 22, @02:36PM
Me remembers well.
With IBM on the deny list, back in those days, rather unpatriotic U.S. Navy systematically sold their own tax-paid Sperry Univac mainframes directly to communists in Czechoslovakia, via Austria and Ireland.
Which side was wrong in that? We got everything, including long term servicing, spare parts, complete hardware documentation and updates...
I do not believe in Cold War theatrics since then.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Thursday December 22, @02:07PM (4 children)
I guess they just better invest all those gas and oil rubles into building themselves a proper chip plants. Their own needs would be filled and they could sell to all the other undesirables that TSMC and the west won't do business with. There should be a market for it. Not to mention all the designs they can "borrow" and make western duplicates, preferably without NSA-malware.
Considering that the rest of the world are also suffering from various chip and circuits shortage it shouldn't be a great surprise that Russia is suffering worse behind all the sanctions. There is just so much their friends in China can do about it. Perhaps they can back a Chinese annexation of Taiwan. That ought to give them access. As we take a step closer to WW3 -- the chippening.
All reports that I have seen so far tho have not been glowing as far as the Elbrus, Baikal etc are concerned so perhaps it's not a great loss after all. Did they pay in advance for them? If not I guess TSMC is left holding the bag on that one and can keep them. After all nobody will want them. They will eventually then be unloaded onto the great Chinese chip market and Russia can get them back that way on the cheap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22, @03:44PM
> ...invest all those gas and oil rubles into building themselves a proper chip plants.
Don't forget staffing for those chip plants, they don't run themselves.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday December 22, @04:49PM (1 child)
Chips aside, both Taiwanese and Chinese military still train very hard with swords. Lot of online mockery about that made by drone operators.
Some of their modern swords mechanical designs are quite intriguing yet simple to manufacture, from 3-6 swords you can quickly assemble a roadblock element, trap or barrier perfectly blocking a corridor or doorway. In close combat inside buildings, swords are still quite useful. And they need no ammunition nor batteries... and, most importantly, chips not required for production of ages proven weaponry.
I am a coder. I know electronics. But if I had a choice, I'd pick a sword before toy ware every time things get rough in WW3.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22, @09:49PM
If WW3 is fought with swords and bows it might be more tempting then machine guns, drones and nukes.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 23, @01:28AM
They'll need an economy too.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Thursday December 22, @04:24PM
This is why I have been saying for decades that expanding domestic chip production is a matter of national security.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday December 22, @10:00PM
"Hey, stop shipping our defects to the African landfill, I got a better place for them!"