back to article Russian chip makers face uncertainty as war drags on

The screw is tightening on Russian chip makers as America moves to further cut off semiconductor supplies to Vladimir Putin's regime. The US last month, in response to the bloody invasion of Ukraine, issued sanctions banning the export of, among many other things, American semiconductor technologies to Russia. Then this week …

  1. Mayday
    Pirate

    Call me cynical

    But I can see an increase of Chinese-manufactured semiconductors being "lost" and subsequently "disposed of" due to "manufacturing faults", "seconds" and "transport damage" in the near future.

    1. Phones Sheridan Silver badge

      Re: Call me cynical

      Reminds me of the japanese manufacturing joke.

      "We've completed your order for parts with a manufacturing failure rate of 10%. We've never had a customer specify how many parts they want to fail before so we're not sure how you want them delivered, for the time being we've put them all in this separate crate".

      1. Jonathon Green

        Re: Call me cynical

        There’s a (possibly apocryphal) story about exactly that when Fender (iconic musical instrument manufacturer) first looked into having instruments produced in Japan….

        The first few prototypes came through for approval and (as anyone who’s ever played a MIJ Fender will be totally unsurprised by) they were flawlessly executed to the exact spec requested. After examining the prototypes and reading glowing reports from in-house QA and Techs Fender management were very enthusiastic about the project and declared that if the Japanese contractors could meet those standards in production with a 99% acceptance rate from Fender QA the deal would go ahead and ordered a pilot batch on that basis. Sure enough a few months later the first shipment of 100 Stratocasters turned up, and on inspection 99 of them were found to be perfect[1] and one of them had a slightly misaligned screw in the scratch plate…

        [1] With respect to what was specified by the contract - I am absolutely not getting into an argument over the relative merits of US and offshore built guitars here!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nobody is ever *that* neutral

    If it turned out North Korea was using RISC-V processors for its intercontinental ballistic missiles, being located in Switzerland wouldn't be enough to not come under serious scrutiny from pretty much everyone who isn't North Korean. Doubly so when you deliberately relocated there to avoid potential government sanctions and controls in the first place.

    Similarly, shouting "Open Source" at the top of your voice won't magically absolve you from responsibility if your "product" is suddenly used to support a tin pot dictator and his invasion force.

    1. MacroRodent

      Re: Nobody is ever *that* neutral

      RISC-V International does not manufacture chips, nor even design them. It is just a custodian of the RISC-V architecture specs. So, a physical RISC-V chip is in no sense their product.

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Nobody is ever *that* neutral

      If something is "open source", it's already out there. How do you stop the "bad guys" from using it? I'm sure the "bad guys" will take careful of any new licence terms :-) Of course, sanctions may make it impossible or at least very difficult to manufacture open source hardware, but the actual open source documentation can't really be sanctioned in any meaningful way.

      Maybe North Korea are using open source software in their missiles. How do you stop that? So, yes, shouting "open source" is a real defence because by it's nature, anyone can access it, good or bad.

  3. _LC_
    Thumb Down

    Great, looks like I've been put on "moderation" for pointing out propaganda

    Now my posts are being held back.

    The “free world” becomes increasingly repressive. You have to blind not to notice.

    1. Excellentsword (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Great, looks like I've been put on "moderation" for pointing out propaganda

      You've been put on moderation for using homophobic slurs.

  4. _LC_
    Holmes

    Where?

    Take any piece of technical equipment and check out where it was made. Then unscrew it and work out where the individual components were made. If there is even one piece of "high technology" that was NOT made in Asia, light a candle and have a minute of silence.

    Now ask yourself WHERE the mentioned difficulties for Russia should be coming from?

  5. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge

    What would happen...

    if Russia decided that any manufacturer that uses tools made using Russian gas is forbidden to export anything to Ukraine or face sanctions?

    1. cookieMonster Silver badge

      Re: What would happen...

      Nothing would happen, nothing at all

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