News Russia's CPU Substitution Plan Hits a Snag

[Admin]

Russia will only ship 15,000 PCs and 8,000 servers based on its own CPUs in 2022.

Russia's CPU Substitution Plan Hits a Snag : Read more

 

[Geef]

90nm? Now your making me feel sorry for them. I am pretty sure I have a 486 sitting in a box I can send them to help out and I think it was made with better than 90nm process.

 

[Nilarium]

90nm? Now your making me feel sorry for them. I am pretty sure I have a 486 sitting in a box I can send them to help out and I think it was made with better than 90nm process.

You can keep it, there are all modern CPUs in stock in Russia . Topic was about own manufacture.

Intel 486 800nm btw

 

[PC Hardware Nerd]

The last time I read about the elbrus processor, it wasn't a processor worth much outside of potential military applications iirc. Russia has plenty of countries around the world willing to get them modern processors for the right price.

 

[torbjorn.lindgren]

90nm? Now your making me feel sorry for them. I am pretty sure I have a 486 sitting in a box I can send them to help out and I think it was made with better than 90nm process.

The various Intel 80486 was made in 1 µm to 600 nm processes!
The first 90nm chips came out 2002 and were eDRAM and flash (easier to do than processors), the first wave of processors to use 90nm came out in 2004, specifically Intel Prescott (3rd gen Pentium 4), AMD Winchester (3rd gen Athlon 64) and IBM 970FX (2nd gen G5) in no specific order.
All these were still single-core processors but had on the order of 50-100 times as many transistors in them as the 80486!
The first 65nm processors came out in 2006 but the changeover is a very gradual process with an extremely long "tail", processes keeps being used almost forever in the embedded space, IIRC you can still order at least up to 600nm! chips, probably way higher too.

 

[Bazzy 505]

this mainly to limit access to dual use components, while the restrictions may seem like to to stoneage tech, people need to realize military applications are guided by very specific mission requirements.

Much of military hardware relies on and is built around technologies going far back as 80's. It is not uncommon to see "old" motorola or intel cpus in everthing from cruise missiles to jet fighters. For example the two main cpus of F22A Raptor are variants of Intel i960MX originally launched in 1984. Even modern civilian aircraft such A320,330 or even 380 have their flight management system based around licensed variants of Am29000 series from AMD which was released all the way back in 1988.

 

[pixelpusher220]

90nm? Now your making me feel sorry for them. I am pretty sure I have a 486 sitting in a box I can send them to help out and I think it was made with better than 90nm process.

Worse, they're still on Windows ME

Edit: Nefarious plan, we offer them a windows upgrade....to Vista!

 

[neojack]

they can easilly buy though a proxy in a friendly or poor country like Hungary, middle east, africa. it just take more time and money.

Heck in theory kalashs's commerce is forbidden too, but this rifle is everywhere in 3rd world countries. I bet CPUs are easier to smuggle than assault riffles

 

[Murissokah]

The various Intel 80486 was made in 1 µm to 600 nm processes!
The first 90nm chips came out 2002...

Yeah, I remember that too. 486 DX266 was the PC I used when I was 8 or so. My college PC was 90nm, those were quite far apart.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

They're still on 90nm.

ROFLMAO!!!!

 

[mitch074]

90nm? Now your making me feel sorry for them. I am pretty sure I have a 486 sitting in a box I can send them to help out and I think it was made with better than 90nm process.

90 nm was the process used for early Athlon 64 and Pentium D processors. It is ancient, but not 486-era ancient. To give you an idea, the Celeron 300A was made with a 180 nm process. The most powerful official 486 (AMD 486 DX4-120, back when AMD and GlobalFoundries were a single entity) was made using 440 nm (or 0.44 µm).

 

[bit_user]

the first wave of processors to use 90nm came out in 2004, specifically Intel Prescott (3rd gen Pentium 4), AMD Winchester (3rd gen Athlon 64) and IBM 970FX (2nd gen G5) in no specific order.

I had a Prescott.

I also have a 1st gen PS3, which contains a Cell processor made on the 90 nm node. They later ported it to 65 nm and eventually even 45 nm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_technical_specifications#Configurations

For a time, you couldn't export PS3's to certain countries, due the the amount of compute power in the Cell.

 

[bit_user]

they can easilly buy though a proxy in a friendly or poor country like Hungary, middle east, africa. it just take more time and money.

Not their own-designed CPUs. Everybody knows where those designs came from.

Besides, I highly doubt you can successfully bring a chip to market without a lot of 2-way interaction with the fab.

 

[jeremyj_83]

90nm? Now your making me feel sorry for them. I am pretty sure I have a 486 sitting in a box I can send them to help out and I think it was made with better than 90nm process.

Unless that CPU is a DX20, SX16, SX20, or SL20 you wouldn't be able to ship it to Russia as the clock speed is too high. This law was written in the early-mid 1990s so a 66MHz CPU was normal. The law did what it was supposed to do as well in keeping "high tech" computers out of the hands out our enemies. However, they haven't updated the law since it was written and it makes everything even worse for Russia.

 

[jkflipflop98]

In comparison with the hottest tech out there 90nm seems laughable. . . but that's still an extremely large about of structures in a single area. It's nothing to sneeze at. You can build more than a microcontroller with it.

 

[Bazzy 505]

it always comes down to using right too for the right job. Take something ATmega328 family, it's pretty much a microcontroller designed around 8 bit RISC cpu core, 32KB ISP flash, 2KB of RAM and as little as 1KB of on-chip eeprom. Yet it's still widely used in everthing from car ECUs, flame rod controllers, many HVAC applications you name it. Hell even the thing heating your house right now may easily have one of that family for brains

 

[russell_john]

90nm? Now your making me feel sorry for them. I am pretty sure I have a 486 sitting in a box I can send them to help out and I think it was made with better than 90nm process.

Actually you can't because it runs higher than 25 MHz ...... This doesn't affect just regular CPUs but all the very microcontrollers needed to make advanced weaponry .... You gotta have some kind of fairly fast "brain" to make those planes and missiles work and once their stock is gone Russia defense is screwed ......

 

[PC Hardware Nerd]

Worse, they're still on Windows ME

Edit: Nefarious plan, we offer them a windows upgrade....to Vista!

Oh, that's pure evil. I approve.

 

[Ælfwynn]

You can keep it, there are all modern CPUs in stock in Russia . Topic was about own manufacture.

Intel 486 800nm btw

I can send them some Pentium 4s

 

[Ælfwynn]

they can easilly buy though a proxy in a friendly or poor country like Hungary, middle east, africa. it just take more time and money.

Heck in theory kalashs's commerce is forbidden too, but this rifle is everywhere in 3rd world countries. I bet CPUs are easier to smuggle than assault riffles

Hungary has better gdp per capital than Russia xD

 

[Bazzy 505]

You can keep it, there are all modern CPUs in stock in Russia . Topic was about own manufacture.

Intel 486 800nm btw

as for domestic dual use chip manufacturing in RF, it is important to remember that most of mass produced military hardware over there goes back 70's designs at the leading edge. At the time domestic chip manufacturing was limited mostly to NMOS production process right into late 80's and there hasn't been consistent funding of developing future capability for most of 9O's.

 

[Eximo]

EMP hardened equipment is actually far better on larger process nodes as well. Same with radiation hardening.

 

[Bazzy 505]

EMP hardened equipment is actually far better on larger process nodes as well. Same with radiation hardening.

true, but it is as much to do with size as with physical properties of building blocks of choice,
For example flip-flop SRAM is much more radiation tolerant than capacitor based DRAM.