Russia faces its toughest yet after the United States blocked its proprietary technology through Intel and AMD at all levels of the business, both server and consumer. And it is that a new package of measures imposed by the United Kingdom blocks access to ARM licenses for all possible chips in Russia, which implies both a problem of logistics and armament for Putin. will it spin now Russia toward China in search of technology ARM?
Farewell to the ARM architecture for designing chips, farewell to all Russian efforts to have an ally with which to fight Intel and AMD in their country. The new package of measures brought by the Johnson government excludes, among others, Putin’s two main chip design and creation companies, such as Baikal Electronics and MCST
UK and ARM against Russia: an attack on the military and hardware industry
Russia has several processors designed or under development to escape the two American giants where the most important have a license for the design of the chips, but not for their manufacture, which is important because the package of measures is fixed for the two cases. And it is that if only the manufacture had been banned, Russia would be calm, since it exports the design to other factories in the world, whereas with the current coup of the United Kingdom Russia is quite exhausted.
The sanctions package aims to “encourage Russia to cease actions that destabilize Ukraine or undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty or independence of Ukraine”, at least according to the prime minister’s administration.
In the midst of a war with Ukraine, Russia can no longer dispose of the chips it designed for missiles, tanks or ships and it is more than likely that the UK will end up blocking the companies that manufacture these chips for this country, because as such the foundries in Russia do not have capacity beyond 90nmso they have to outsource.
Will Russia switch to RISC-V and China?
Even though it may not look like it, the United States and Europe realized years ago what was to come. Unlike Russia these have advanced foundries, in the case of Intel they are TOP, whereas the Russians have no leading companies and the investment they have made to move now from about $5 billion is overdue and we’ll see if it’s wrong (28 nm in 2030
Therefore, and in these almost 8 years, Russia has to move in view of the technological blockades of NATO countries and the easiest solution would be to turn to RISC-V ya China. The first because it doesn’t have much leeway, the second because it is foreseeable that TSMC will be blocked from manufacturing in its country, so it should look to Chinese foundries as a strategic partner to continue manufacturing 28nm.
It may have to rely on underperforming Chinese chips and adapt much of its infrastructure, either that or for war, because according to some sources Russian companies are on the verge of technological collapse as they do not have Intel and AMD processors and the servers must continue to be maintained and updated to maintain the country’s network infrastructure. Where will Russia move in this British blockade with ARM?