The Russian arms industry is struggling to cope with the international sanctions. Tanks can no longer be built and aircraft can only be flown with outdated technology.
In response to its military aggression in Ukraine, the international community has imposed export bans and far-reaching sanctions on Russia. These range from restrictions on the financial market to a ban on the supply of computer technology, sensors and telecommunications equipment as well as semiconductors and microchips. The effects are being felt throughout industry – in mechanical engineering, the automotive industry and the energy sector. However, the security and defense sector has also been massively affected, where in many cases complete production has had to be halted without the urgently needed components. Tank production, for example, has come to a standstill in recent months, and even the production of spare parts for the T-72B3, T-80U and T-90 tanks damaged in Ukraine is only running to a limited extent. A look inside the Orlan-10 ISR drone illustrates just how dependent the Russian arms industry is on Western goods: the Ukrainians found 750-SLR Canon cameras and a GPS module based on the ADSP-BF534 microchip from the US company Analog Devices installed in crashed and shot-down specimens. The flight controller was developed on the basis of the STM32F103 LQFP from the French-Italian microelectronics manufacturer ST-Microelectronics and the data receiver, with a logo from the Russian distributor ImoTech pasted over it, comes from the German company AnyLink (DP1205-C915). The pressure sensor also uses MPXA4115A and MPXV5004DP from the US company Freescale Semiconductor (part of the Dutch company NXP Semiconductors N.V.), the compass IC uses the HMC6352 from the US company Нoneywell and the starter generator uses a PTN78020 from Texas Instruments. The situation is very similar for the SRBM Iskander surface-to-surface ballistic missile and the Kalibr cruise missile, 60 to 70 percent of whose guidance electronics are made up of foreign components. What is particularly problematic from a Russian perspective is that many of these components cannot simply be procured on other markets against the backdrop of US sanctions. Products manufactured outside the USA are also subject to the US export regulation EAR, provided they are manufactured using US technology or US software. In addition, Russian companies on the Bureau of Industry and Security list are no longer allowed to be supplied at all – not even with other components. With Baikal Electronics, MZST (chip model Elbrus) and MTZ Elvis, the most important Russian microelectronics manufacturers are also listed there.
The Russian leadership is of course aware of the difficult situation, but the measures taken to substitute imports will hardly be able to compensate for the restrictions – especially not in the short term. According to international experts, even the plan to build up its own chip industry over the next few years with more than 35 billion euros is unlikely to produce competitive chips. Without the support of global market leaders such as TSMC (Taiwan), Samsung (South Korea) and Intel (USA), Russian chip developers will at best be able to produce chips in the – seriously outdated – 90-nanometer category (90 nm) in the foreseeable future. Although the number of integrated circuits on a “wafer” could certainly be increased by 2030, it will probably not be possible to produce more than products in the 28 nm category, which is also already a year old. For comparison: Intel was already manufacturing at 90 nm in 2003 and now produces its twelfth-generation Core i processors in the 10 nm range. TSMC even claims to have already reached the 4 nm range and also announced a “significant breakthrough in the development of the 1 nm process node” last year. Incidentally, the well-known Russian Elbrus and Baikal processors (28 nm and 16 nm) were previously manufactured by TSMC, but the company has since withdrawn from the Russian market.
Another problem for the future of Russian semiconductor production is that it requires highly qualified employees, tens of thousands of whom are currently leaving the country. According to the head of the relevant industry association, Sergei Plugotarenko, up to 70,000 Russian IT and technology specialists left their home country in March alone and emigration is likely to have increased even further since then. And an end to the “brain drain” towards Georgia, Kazakhstan, Armenia and India, the USA and Europe is not to be expected in the coming months and years. Moscow is also trying to counteract this development (with little success for the time being). For example, all employees in the information technology sector have been exempted from income tax with immediate effect and until 2024. In addition, an export ban has been imposed on around 200 product categories, which is intended to stop the exodus of foreign companies and technology. The measure is also intended to maintain Russia’s supply of monitors, microprocessors, circuits, diodes, transistors, fiber optic cables, laser devices and other product groups. https://militaeraktuell.at/moderne-waffenstation-fuer-den-pandur-evolution/ Currently, the smallest Russian production node size is 65 nm. The smallest parts, which are only available in small quantities, are (naturally) reserved primarily for particularly relevant areas, such as the production of the 5th generation Su-57 fighter jet (NATO: Felon). However, Moscow is still 20 years behind the international competition in terms of production technology. By way of comparison, the AN/APG-81 AESA radar for the F-35 was all about integrating off-the-shelf components quickly, which is why 90 nm technology was used, which was the state of the art at the time. But that was 2004! Today, even 65 nm chips are no longer considered suitable for aerospace applications for safety reasons. The smaller the nanometer category, the better the chips can handle higher temperature ranges and the more reliable they are. To apply this even more clearly to the fighter aircraft sector and avionics systems: The Su-35 is the first operational Russian jet to have a data bus at MIL-STD-1553 level and a data radio type à la Link 16. However, the F-15 and F-16 reached this level almost 30 years ago.
Can other countries alleviate the chip shortage? Some companies (Lenovo from China, Asus, Acer and MSI from Taiwan) are not yet complying with the supply bans and help could possibly also come from India, where manufacturer HAL produces Russian Su-30 (MKI) jets under license – albeit with avionics from Israel. Support from Belarus could come from BKO, which manufactures the highly advanced Amulet self-protection jamming container (exported as Talisman-NT). And China? Although there are many new semiconductor companies in the country thanks to massive subsidies from the Communist Party government, the “techno-hungry” People’s Republic cannot even meet its own demand. In addition, Chinese companies are not yet technologically on a par with TSMC and the like. They are still dependent on Western suppliers – and this is where the USA comes into play again: in order to prevent the export of microprocessors to Russia, Washington has already threatened to cut off Chinese companies from American software and equipment if the worst comes to the worst. But even so, the “boundless friendship” between the two countries, which was only described again at the beginning of February, does not seem to be all that far off. Immediately after the start of the war in distant Eastern Europe and the announcement of the West’s “tech embargo”, Chinese manufacturers charged their Russian customers price mark-ups of up to 50% on many products.
Further information on the sanctions-related problems of the Russian security and defense industry can also be found here, here and here can be read here.
