Experts believe that Russia can establish domestic production of semiconductor products to solve the shortage problem, but it will take the country about 15 years to do so.
We need to clearly realize that Russia does not have the necessary technological process to produce such microchips, and in the next couple of years it is not expected, because the production of such a complex microchip requires equipment that is available in Taiwan or in Asian countries, in Malaysia, for example. I think, given that development is getting easier every year, Russia will need 15 years for this (to establish a semiconductor manufacturing system), if such a task is at all.
Sergey Polovnikov, head of the analytical agency Content Review.
The problem is that the country does not have the production site needed to set up production. The Mikron plant in Zelenograd, whose microcontrollers can be found in the Mir and Troika cards, cannot produce modern microchips according to the necessary technological processes.
MForum Analytics analyst Alexei Boyko believes that an alternative to Taiwanese manufacturer TSMC, which has stopped supplying to Russia, could be China’s SMIC, but it may also refuse to cooperate.
The fact is that this enterprise is already operating in quite difficult circumstances, because the United States has warned them: if American technology is somehow used to produce chips of a country that is under sanctions, it could cost them tougher sanctions against the Chinese enterprise. And since the turnover of this enterprise from the U.S. is quite noticeable, they themselves may not particularly want to perform contracts for Russia.
Alex Boyko