this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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Sanctions have crippled Baikal's production and packaging capabilities

Why it matters: Global sanctions against Russian companies have worked in at least one respect: Baikal Electronics can no longer supply enough chips to meet the country's needs, and half of the chips it produces are defective. Russia is working to build up its domestic capabilities, but it is unclear whether it can catch up. 

Baikal Electronics, one of Russia's major processor developers, has been struggling in the wake of sanctions imposed by the US and UK governments following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Until then, the company ordered the production of chips, including their packaging, from TSMC.

The Taiwan-based chipmaker promptly stopped shipping processors that year because of the sanctions. The sanctions also blocked the Russian company from licensing Arm technology. Baikal, which switched from the Baikal-T series MIPS instruction set architecture to Arm years ago, used the technology in its Baikal-M, -S, and -L series chips.

The supply restrictions forced the company to turn inward to produce packaged and tested silicon. Russian business news outlet Vedomosti recently revealed that about half of the processors packaged in Russia are defective. A source told the paper that the failures are due to equipment that is not configured correctly and not having enough properly trained technicians for the chip packaging.

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[–] tunetardis@lemmy.ca 77 points 7 months ago (1 children)

In Putin's Russia, even the chips defect.

[–] ArtVandelay@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Shots fired!

Unfortunately, they blew up in the tube, killing poor Ivan.

[–] SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That time was on purpose, the ship's officers were trying to defect. KGB operative planted as a cook got a medal

[–] ArtVandelay@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

I feel like they could almost make that into a movie

[–] mindlight@lemm.ee 58 points 7 months ago (7 children)

Yet another sign of Russian economy booming!

Since Putin and the trolls here on Lemmy claim that the Russian economy is booming, this must mean that Russian chip manufacturing sucked even more before Russia started using torture, rape and mass murder to try to invade Ukraine.

Note the "try"... Because, damn do they suck at invading other countries too....

[–] cro_magnon_gilf@sopuli.xyz 18 points 7 months ago (9 children)

If you care about Ukraine, you should start taking this more seriously. Outside of your echo-chamber, Russia has proved resilient to sanctions and their ability to manifacture vital military goods in some crucial areas outpace the west, and by far outpace what is avaliable to Ukraine.

The much hoped for ukrainian counteroffensive yeilded nothing, and instead Russia is slowly gaining ground, allthewhile expanding its army with new, fresh units and learning to work with or around their shortcomings. Ukraine doesn't have anything to put its hope to other than simple endurance. And that's something that Russia has always had a lot of. The outlook is grim.

Ukraine needs support

[–] mindlight@lemm.ee 22 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There are two important sides to this and you are only focusing one of them.

One is of course supporting Ukraine, as you point out, but what is also extremely important is not to let Russia get away with their obvious bullshit propaganda.

Russia is working hard on getting rid of the sanctions. One of the main tools used are to try to get people in the West to believe to Russian economy is unaffected.

It is not.

(If it was, Putin wouldn't fx deal with North Korea like they've been doing the last year.)

So if no one was calling out Putin and his useful idiots on fx Facebook or Lemmy, how long do you think the public in the West would support Ukraine?

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[–] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 4 points 7 months ago (6 children)

manifacture vital military goods in some crucial areas outpace the west

Artillery rounds. Russia has done a good job keeping up with demand. The news says they are almost out but just keep going.

I support Ukraine but I was shocked at Americans limited production capabilities for artillery rounds.

[–] histic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

correct me if I'm wrong but I think we do a lot more close air support then artillery anymore so I'm guessing that's why but I'm just guessing here

edit: spelling

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[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Russia has proved resilient to sanctions and their ability to manifacture vital military goods in some crucial areas outpace the west

Thats cause companies didnt leave like they should have, they just changed their local shop names. And they will never be held accountable for it.

Its also cause countries, like Poland, are still trading with Russia.

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[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago (8 children)

Well, whole russia is boom-ing 😁!

Who the hell thinks the russian economy isn't in freefall??

[–] mindlight@lemm.ee 14 points 7 months ago (3 children)

The amount of Russian friendly trolls and useful idiots on Lemmy are impressive... In a bad way.

[–] fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee 4 points 7 months ago

Yeah, it ruins the experience for me. I hope some day I can feel comfortable recommending the fediverse to friends.

[–] SharkAttak@kbin.social 1 points 7 months ago

When one of the main instances is .ml, what you expect

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[–] EnderMB@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I don't think it's booming by any means, but it's definitely not collapsing in a way that many assumed.

Perhaps Putin doesn't give a fuck, perhaps it's because they have enough reserves to keep things going for x months/years, who knows. I would love to see them lose their reserves and truly start to look at the position they've put themselves in. That's when Putin's leadership will be questioned at a higher level, and the idea of "one mother state" will be viewed as a disaster.

[–] mindlight@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The masters never cares about the people. Putin still lives the same way he did before in his palace.

Russia will most likely not collapse (as in "total chaos") as long as China, India, Brasil and other countries support them in their colonization efforts.

But it will bring them down on their knees and it will, if the West somehow is able to deliver ammunition etc, force Russia to end their war in Ukraine.

I'm not optimistic, especially not since the Americans are about to vote for the Russian asset in the upcoming election, but hope is the last thing that leaves you....

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Americans aren't about to vote for the Mango Mussolini. Red~~coats~~ hats are.

[–] Michal@programming.dev 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They are doing ao well they can afford to waste half their chips

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[–] Diplomjodler@feddit.de 1 points 7 months ago

But one thing they're good at is subverting political parties in other countries to do their bidding.

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[–] sickday@kbin.social 58 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The future's looking bright for those Russian knock-off Steam Decks.

[–] ivanafterall@kbin.social 25 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Apparently, exploding television sets were the leading cause of fires in Russian apartments in the 80s and 90s (per Adam Curtis' TraumaZone). Except this time you're literally holding it.

[–] Pacmanlives@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The handheld claymore that entertains you

[–] ChrisLicht@lemm.ee 50 points 7 months ago

Here is a joke I heard in Moscow, in the early-‘90s:

Our Soviet computer sector was clearly the best. We built the largest chips in the world!

[–] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 25 points 7 months ago

Only a 50% defect rate? By Russian standards that's absolutely outstanding

[–] Lath@kbin.earth 22 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

Say what you will about Russia, but it had its fair share of amazing scientists.
I wonder if the next generation will rise from these restrictions or have they already been fed as fodder into the war machine?

[–] irreticent@lemmy.world 47 points 7 months ago

The brain drain that happened because of this war will take Russia decades to reverse. All the smart scientists got out fast.

[–] OttoVonNoob@lemmy.ca 16 points 7 months ago

The problem is so many talented and gifted young men fled the country as the war began. The UK intelligence agency estimates 1.3 million, those were families that had someone talented enough to work abroad and or had enough money to start over somewhere else. Not to mention the meat grinder...

source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65790759

[–] naeap@sopuli.xyz 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The UDSSR had a quite good educational system. Communist countries usually had the lowest illiteracy rates

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Yeah and they learned that agriculture (like in mother nature) was ruled by politics. Soo good education.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

They had a lot of people and made any scientist/engineer who was successful into a celebrity.

[–] Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 7 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Average RuSSian engineering

[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)
[–] tunetardis@lemmy.ca 19 points 7 months ago

FTA:

By 2030, the country's goal is to manufacture chips using a 28nm process technology – something TSMC did in 2011.

That's assuming they really do have no choice but to do all fabrication domestically.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

16nm from what I can tell on their Baikal-S

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

16nm from what I can tell on their Baikal-S

I'm only seeing 16nm from the units produced by TSMC. Do you have something current that shows the domestically produced ones are also of that gate width?

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Good call out, I totally failed to recognize that any chip made on a TSMC process isn’t going to be made in Russia. I’m trying to figure out what domestic fabs exist in Russia; from what I can tell Baikal is fabless. I have found an article that states Russia is aiming for a 28nm domestic process by 2027, so I guess their best chips at this point are likely in the 40+nm range. I’m going to keep reading though because I’m definitely curious about this.

Edit: this article paints an even worse picture for them. One of their fabs, Angstrom, had to disclose in bankruptcy proceedings 6 years ago that they hadn’t developed a process better than 250nm dispite licensing Intel 90nm process tech back in 2012.

From what I can tell, Mikron has been able to get a domestic 90nm process and possibly a 65nm process going in their domestic fabs. Sounds like they’re 20 years behind, yikes

[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Do they need to license intel tech? Can’t they just steal it? I assume no one will enforce that.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Well that licensing deal was 12 years ago. Things were very different before Russia invaded Crimea. Even if they had the ability to design smaller process chips, the machines needed to manufacture those processes are highly advanced and not manufactured in Russia.

[–] HoustonHenry@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

All this reminds me of when China was finally able to mass-produce roller-ball pen tips...in 2017! They had been importing them the whole time. In 2012, one of the CCP big wigs threw a fit that in-house roller-ball tips were shit, so the CCP ran R&D for five years to finally introduce it in 2017

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 8 points 7 months ago

Well them Z80s are tricky.

[–] ray@kbin.social 7 points 7 months ago

50% of the time it works every time

[–] avater@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Bad news from Russia are good news! great to hear that they keep failing :)

[–] xor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 7 months ago

Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit

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