Spies, Reverse Engineering, and Nationwide Endeavors: Where Did the Soviet Union's All-Out Efforts to Develop Chips Fall Short?
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Author:小编   

In March 2026, the latest edition of Russia's National Industrial Information System (GISP) catalog unveiled that the 350-nanometer lithography system, a collaborative venture between Russia's Zelenograd Nanotechnology Center (ZNTC) and Belarus' Planar, had been officially listed in the national industrial equipment registry. The equipment, designated as model RAVC.442174.002TU, employs a 365-nanometer wavelength i-line ultraviolet light source, is capable of processing 200-millimeter standard wafers, attains an alignment precision of 90 nanometers, and is geared for mass-producing industrial-grade chips. It is poised for widespread deployment in sectors such as power management, automotive electronics, aerospace control, and embedded systems. Initiated in 2021 and backed by Russia's Ministry of Industry and Trade, the project's primary objective is to surmount Western technological barriers and forge an autonomous semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. Listing in the GISP catalog grants the equipment access to the domestic market, with government bodies and state-owned enterprises giving precedence to domestically produced items in the registry during procurement processes. Despite the 350-nanometer process node trailing behind the globally cutting-edge 3-nanometer or 5-nanometer technologies, the demand for such mature process chips within the modern industrial framework remains substantial and consistent. ZNTC disclosed that the subsequent research and development milestone is targeted at the 130-nanometer node. Should this technological hurdle be cleared, the versatility of Russian domestically manufactured chips will experience a further surge. Furthermore, the technological lineage of this equipment can be traced back to the Soviet Union's pioneering work in lithography and micro/nano-processing technologies over three decades ago.