Major CPU makers AMD and Intel pulled out of the Russian market after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. Now it is not easy for his PC maker in Russia to get the chips he needs.
There are some Russian companies that design their own processors, but these chips are made by TSMC and Taiwan no longer allows exports to Russia. As a result, countries are reportedly unable to replace foreign CPUs with their own. Kommersant daily business.
According to Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, Russian PC and server makers this year sold 15,000 PCs and 8,000 PCs based on Elbrus and Baikal processors designed in Russia and manufactured in Taiwan. It is reported that it only supplied servers.
“There will be many more [PCs and servers based on Russian CPUs] If this year batches of Russian processors, Elbrus and Baikal produced on order will be shipped, ”said the head of the ministry, Maksut Shadayev. “Intellectual property and all documents are in Russian, but we do not have production facilities in Russia. We may be able to produce these CPUs, so production has been ordered in other countries.”
While Russia’s most advanced fabs can produce chips at the 90nm node, MCST’s most sophisticated CPUs were produced by TSMC on a 16nm manufacturing process.
Due to restrictions imposed by the United States, Britain and the European Union on high-tech exports to Russia, Taiwan’s major companies were among the first to cease cooperation with Russia after Russia started a war with Ukraine months ago.
In June, Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) formalized a list of high-tech products prohibited from shipping to Russia and Belarus, in an effort to disallow Russia and Belarus from using advanced technology for military purposes. issued. In particular, the Taiwanese authorities will not allow the export of processors with performance in excess of 5 GFLOPS, operating at 25 MHz or higher, featuring external interconnects with data transfer rates of 2.5 MB/s or higher, and/or with wider ALUs. has been banned. 32-bit or higher. Basically, Taiwan doesn’t allow advanced processors to be exported to Russia, so TSMC can’t ship chips it’s contracted to produce for the country. Also, TSMC is not the only company that cannot or will not ship chips to Russia.
“Foreign manufacturers of processors based on Russian developer’s blueprints have refused to fulfill orders in 2022, including shipments of already manufactured chips,” Shadayev reported. I’m here. red blood cell.
