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Russian tanks are using chips from household appliances due to sanctions:
[...] In a Senate hearing on Wednesday, the US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo cited Ukrainians who found semiconductors from dishwashers and refrigerators in Russian tanks. Ukrainian officials say these are substitutes for components Russian manufacturers can't get due to international sanctions.
Raimondo said US technology exports to Russia have sunk by almost 70 percent since Russia started its invasion in late February. Moreover, spokesperson from the US Commerce department Robyn Patterson said US component shipments to Russia have fallen by 85 percent in the last year. Raimondo said the Ukrainian findings prove the sanctions are successfully diminishing Russia's war effort.
Complying with sanctions, computer companies like Intel, AMD, IBM, TSMC, and GlobalFoundries also stopped chip sales to Russia.
[...] Russia isn't the only entity cannibalizing appliances to fill chip deficiencies. Last month, ASML CEO Peter Wennik admitted that some companies are repurposing chips from washing machines to compensate for the ongoing global chip shortage.
https://www.techspot.com/news/94301-asml-ceo-companies-ripping-out-chips-washing-machines.html
Last year, TSMC chairman Mark Liu said various distributors and go-betweens had been stockpiling chips throughout the pandemic. Liu also didn't mention names, but both TSMC and ASML are close with an extensive network of partners and customers. They have long warned that geopolitical instability and sanctions imposed on countries like China and Russia would push companies to create even more chaos in the tech supply chain.
Lam Research CEO Timothy Archer echoed Wennink's remark that supply-related delays will affect how much factory equipment can be manufactured in the coming months. Even if companies like TSMC, Samsung, and Intel could somehow secure enough tooling for their new factories, major wafer suppliers won't be able to keep up with demand until 2024.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Wednesday May 18 2022, @07:48AM (1 child)
I'm kinda wondering about the claim from the original story, how did they know some random SoC in a tank came from a dishwasher? It's not like they'll be labelled "for dishwasher use only", it's a generic part that's usable anywhere. The reports sound more like a mashup of several different stories glued together with a lot of speculation.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 18 2022, @04:04PM
The chips probably didn't come out of a dishwasher. Many microcontrollers are one-time programmable so they can't be reused like that. What is probably happening is that Russia is buying consumer grade parts to get around restrictions on military grade parts. The falsified paperwork may claim they are making dishwashers, or some other approved application, or more likely the journalist is just sensationalizing since automotive grade parts would probably be a better match for military use.