Half of Russian-Made Chips Are Defective (tomshardware.com) 64
Anton Shilov reports via Tom's Hardware: About half of the processors packaged in Russia are defective. This has prompted Baikal Electronics, a Russian processor developer, to expand the number of packaging partners in the country, according to a report in Vedomosti, a Russian-language business daily newspaper published in Moscow (hat tip to Cnews). In addition to GS Group based in Kaliningrad, the company will now use Milandr and Mikron, which are based in Zelenograd, a town near Moscow. What remains unclear is which foundry initially produces the chips for Baikal. [...]
There are no contract chipmakers in Russia that can process wafers on 28nm-class fabrication technologies, so Baikal is likely using a Chinese foundry to make its processors. Since 2021, the company has been experimenting with localizing chip packaging at GS Group in Kaliningrad. But transitioning to local packaging has not been smooth. The process is intricate and costly, leading to a high rate of defects. According to industry insiders, more than half of the chip batches end up being defective due to issues with equipment calibration and the lack of skilled personnel. It turns out that GS Group cannot fulfill the demands of Baikal, which has now tapped Milandr and Mikron to assist with chip packaging. Apparently, it hasn't helped much. "More than half of the chip batches turn out to be defective," a source familiar with the matter told Vedomosti. "The reasons lie in both the equipment of the enterprises, which needs to be properly configured, and the insufficient competencies of the people involved in chip packaging."
"Russia can package a small number of processors, but when it comes to a series, a lot of defects appear," explained one of the newspaper's sources. "Manufacturers cannot maintain a consistently high level across all products."
There are no contract chipmakers in Russia that can process wafers on 28nm-class fabrication technologies, so Baikal is likely using a Chinese foundry to make its processors. Since 2021, the company has been experimenting with localizing chip packaging at GS Group in Kaliningrad. But transitioning to local packaging has not been smooth. The process is intricate and costly, leading to a high rate of defects. According to industry insiders, more than half of the chip batches end up being defective due to issues with equipment calibration and the lack of skilled personnel. It turns out that GS Group cannot fulfill the demands of Baikal, which has now tapped Milandr and Mikron to assist with chip packaging. Apparently, it hasn't helped much. "More than half of the chip batches turn out to be defective," a source familiar with the matter told Vedomosti. "The reasons lie in both the equipment of the enterprises, which needs to be properly configured, and the insufficient competencies of the people involved in chip packaging."
"Russia can package a small number of processors, but when it comes to a series, a lot of defects appear," explained one of the newspaper's sources. "Manufacturers cannot maintain a consistently high level across all products."
Boo hoo (Score:1)
Re:Boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Boo hoo (Score:2, Interesting)
This isn't really news though, half of Russia has fetal vodka spectrum disorder, so basically half of Russia is defective. Just look at Putin, he's got several of the classic physical symptoms:
1) He's a dwarf without actual dwarfism
2) thin upper lip
3) microcephaly (small head)
4) microganathia (underdeveloped jaw)
5) flat mid face
6) small eye openings
Don't believe me? Look at his pictures:
https://www.grunge.com/437378/... [grunge.com]
And note how he looks like half of Russia...
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That would also explain why it's so easy to find body doubles.
Re: Boo hoo (Score:2)
Wow, it seems craniometry and flat out racism is making a comeback in conspiracy circles.
Putin was raised as a Stalin apparatchik, his father was high ranking Soviet official and Putin himself was being groomed for a similar position. The guy is a Stalin wannabe that wants to return the country to communist ideals, he is not stupid, he obtained his goal in Ukraine with relatively small losses while consolidating his power internally and will stay where he is now. Lenin and Stalin both did the same things, f
Re: Boo hoo (Score:2)
Shit you really don't know anything do you? First, Russia isn't a race. Second, facial features and stature are commonly used to diagnose FASD. It's also marked by poor impulse control and other mental health issues that Putin is well known for. It also doesn't necessarily mean somebody is incapable of being a calculating narcissistic asshole; it is a spectrum after all, and we've actually seen a high incidence of that. Third, it's way more common than your think. You probably look up to many people with it
in soviet russia we package you! (Score:2)
in soviet russia we package you!
This is a good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
It means fewer useful chips for Russian to use in its missiles. They're already relying on sanction busters in neighboring countries which is why washing machine sales have soared [telegraph.co.uk]. It's funny how washing machine sales [bakermckenzie.com] from Kazakhstan to Russia was zero in 2021 but soared to over 100,000 in 2022.
Re:This is a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, 28nm is sufficient for munitions, even if it is an 14 year old node at TSMC.
Re: This is a good thing (Score:1)
Munitions don't need any chips...
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Uh, the ones that can kill you from thousands of miles away do.
Yeet them. (Score:2)
kill you from thousands of miles away
...well, if you build a large enough trebuchet...
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And a large wooden badger.
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Especially after how Russia vetoed the continued scrutiny of North Korea by the UN.
Out of the 14 members, China abstained, so of the 13, 12 voted to continue funding the team monitoring the sanctions against North Korea. Russia used its voto power to overrule it and force the disbandment of the team.
Rumors have it that the latest report would show that North Korea was selling munitions to Russia, despite both sides denying it.
The only other thing is we don't know how good those chips are in the long term -
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It's high time to remove Muscovy from the UN Security Council. There's a precedent: a member of the permanent council has been replaced before.
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We already have an all-West-only organization. It's called NATO. If you want to kick out everyone from the UN that doesn't go along with what the West wants or is evil or whatever then just cancel the UN entirely.
Kicking Russia off the SC would yield what positive result?
Why not kick China out, too? We can replace them with our allies. That'll be great.
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China, while not nice internally, doesn't invade foreign countries every a few years, and can wait more than 10 years between launching new genocides. Muscovy, on the other hand...
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There's a reason why all of Chinas neighbours hate them.
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I fully agree. The UN helps cover up all sorts of human rights crimes and even commits some of its own.
But kicking them out is not the solution. The purpose of the UN was to bring countries together so maybe they'd talk and slow things down a bit before they immediately started shooting each other. It has sometimes succeeded in that role likely saving millions of lives and some of its secondary non-political programs are actually beneficial to the world.
As lame as the UN is, I think killing it would be w
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Russia's position on the UN Security Council was inherited as the successor state to the USSR.
Russia remains a major world power (where they lead, many nations follow), and the purpose of the permanent members of the Security Council is to give the major world powers a direct impact on international politics without starting another world war.
Removing them would be have a destabilizing effect -the exact opposite of the reason for the UN to exist.
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To be fair, Russia suffered a sharp increase in soiled underwear starting shortly after Feb 24, 2022.
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Baikal does not make chips used by the Russian military. They sell to the civilian sector. Including civilian government and industry.
How some people still believe this bullshit about washing machines is just plain ridiculous. The reason for the imports is pretty simple. The Western appliance factories in Russia closed down after the sanctions made it impossible for them to operate. They couldn't make financial transactions to repatriate profits anymore, and they couldn't import chips and others parts eithe
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If you wanted to smuggle in chips, would you import huge washing machines into the country to take out just a couple minute chips out of them, or just buy the tiny chips outright in the gray market and smuggle them in? If people can smuggle drugs or tobacco, it is even easier to do it with tiny chips. It beggars belief how some people are retarded enough even here on Slashdot to believe this bullshit about importing washing machines and taking the chips out. It is bad enough we have leaders who believe in s
A bag of pennies (Score:2)
Reuse (Score:2, Funny)
Guess Russia's military will (Score:4, Informative)
just have to pay twice as much for the chips it puts in new FAB 500, FAB 1500, Iskander, and Kinzal missiles it fires at the Ukrainians?
I mean if they want consumer products they can buy finished smartphones and such from SE Asia, so who, if not the military, would be the main buyer of 28nm chips packaged in Russia with a 50% defect rate?
The U.S. stopped sending weapons to Ukraine six months ago (except for some delayed shipments) since all aid packages had expired and the MAGAs blocked any further aid. So it's nice if Russia pays extra for chips, but they're sill dropping something like 10 bombs on Ukraine for every one Ukraine throws back. The bigger ones tend to be GPS guided, which requires chips.
Re:Guess Russia's military will (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. The fact that you even think that demonstrates that you have no clue how Congress works.
The Speaker of the House (literally one guy; Mike Johnson) has blocked the vote on bills that would have provided support to the Ukraine. There's a name for a government where one guy gets to dictate things and it's not "representative".
The most recent vote was 49-50 where Republicans voted against the bipartisan bill that they themselves introduced because they changed their mind and decided that they wanted more money thrown at border security than they originally asked for. That's not representative; that's moving the goalposts to ensure that nothing gets passed (and this has been the Republican party's standard operating procedure since Obama was elected and they vowed that nothing would get passed).
As for the MAGA side, if Trump gave a speech tomorrow and said we should fund the Ukraine, every last one of them would immediately start demanding we fund the Ukraine. They literally can't be represented because they mindlessly regurgitate whatever Trump tells them they should believe. It's not even a dictatorship with them; it's a cult.
Re: Guess Russia's military will (Score:1)
Trump does want them to fund "The Ukraine" because that's the Soviet name for Ukraine. But why are YOU using it?
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Awww... poor baby. You couldn't find a spelling error to nitpick, so you had to go for an even dumber attempt to distract from the conversation and failed.
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In fact, one of the few things I enjoy about the mobile-era Slashdot is that the spelling errors are no longer a topic of conversation. This is something else.
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MAGAs are only like two-thirds of Republicans, so nowhere near the majority of Congress. As Grumpy noted, a majority of Congress wants to halt the Russian advance and Mike Johnson has been stopping them singlehandedly for months (before which, Republicans spent a month unable to agree on a replacement House speaker, since the MAGAs and non-MAGAs couldn't agree and the non-MAGAs wouldn't make a deal with Democrats).
Johnson can't keep his story straight either; previously he made it very clear he wouldn't
Hey Putin (Score:3)
You're doing an awesome job! Fabbing like it's 1999!
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It doesn't require anything better than an 8088 to get a missile to land in the right spot.
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Correct, Saddam launched a few in my direction during the Gulf War ... never the right spot though. One came close, heard the shrapnel whiz overhead, but never the right spot.
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Wonz ze rockets are up, who cares were zey come down...
Russian tech, matching WW2 tech.
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True but they do need to get into the right general area. Going into Poland or empty fields doesn't help their cause.
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Wow, a simple fact about computers is flame bait on /.
Mod is either an idiot or so incredibly fragile you need daily therapy and your meds tripled.
2+2=4
Sky is blue
Sun rises in East, sets in west
8088 cpu is sufficient for basic weapon guidance systems
Investment climate is the real reason (Score:4, Interesting)
Any significant investment in Russia (> few $M) inevitably attracts attention of many "powerful people", all asking for their cuts.
Thus, very few projects can be viable, forget about profitable. Basically, only those personally overseen by Putin (to fend off smaller "protectors").
In my opinion, this is the main reason high-tech in Russia is not possible, other than small software shops, which require little investment and can stay under the radar of siloviks until they become big. Then they are taken over and/or looted.
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Ironically, right before the 2022 invasion, I had located a dude in Rostov who was soldering together ISA PS/2 mouse boards for retrofitting XTs and even ATs with pseudo-modern mouse interfaces. I got one small order back from him before it became impossible to continue business. Lots of talent there, but mass production is always sloppy. That was the story during WWII also, the US experts sent over were always amazed at how crude the production was, but when you're making big hunks of steel, precision is
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Any significant investment in Russia (> few $M) inevitably attracts attention of many "powerful people", all asking for their cuts.
This is different from America how? The only difference I see is in how far down it reaches towards the common citizen. Bribes are not necessary at the citizen level here in America. That is a HUGE improvement, but the overall environment is still the same.
Scoop! Factory is working to raise yields (Score:2)
Wow it’s almost like (Score:3)
You try make microchip⦠(Score:2)
Packages or chips? (Score:2)
The summary is very unclear on whether the problem is with the chips or with the packaging. If this chips are faulty, changing the packager won't fix anything.
The summary also includes the implication that the testing is faulty.
The typical russian solution... (Score:2)
They admit half of them are defective? (Score:2)
Then assume that no more than 10% kinda-sorta-maybe work.
Russia is a right wing utopia (Score:2)
Conservatives, having seen a few ten second video clips, keep insisting Russia has achieved utopia. Of course statistics say another story. The Moscow metro has been bombed three times (not counting machine gun incidents and beheadings). Russia is the most targeted country in horrific terror attacks (Beslan school massacre, entire apartment buildings, etc. not even counting the attack from two weeks ago). Oh, and forget terror .. let's talk crime. According to their own federal statistics website Russia ha
The other half is OK (Score:1)
The main news here is that Russia does package CPUs, and about a half of them are good.