Taiwan bans exports of chips faster than 25MHz to Russia, Belarus
- Reference: 1654537288
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/06/06/taiwan_chips_russia/
- Source link:
The island nation is the [1]world's largest advanced chip manufacturing hub, so the export ban carried out by Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs, [2]reported last week , will make it more difficult for Russia and Belarus to find chips for a variety of electronics, including computers, phones and TVs.
Russia has already been scrambling to replace x86 processors from Intel and AMD that it can no longer access because of export bans by the US and other countries. This has prompted Russia to [3]source x86-compatible chips from China for laptops that will be considerably slower than most modern systems. The country is also switching to [4]servers using its homegrown Elbrus processors, which Russia's largest bank has found to be inadequate for multiple reasons.
[5]
Taiwan's new restrictions on chip exports to Russia and Belarus will significantly ratchet up the pressure on the two countries. This is because the export ban includes chips that are faster than 25MHz, which means Russia and Belarus won't be able to source chips from Taiwan that are faster than [6]Intel's higher-end i386 microprocessors from the 1980s. Processors as fast as [7]Intel's first Pentium CPUs from the early 1990s are completely out of the question.
[8]
[9]
That limitation alone would cut off Russia and Belarus from many microcontrollers and microprocessors that go into a variety of electronics. However, the island's restrictions also extend to chips with:
5 gigaflops or higher performance
An arithmetic logic unit of 32 bits or wider
External interconnect speeds of 2.5 MB/s or higher
More than 144 pins
A basic gate propagation delay of less than 0.4 nanoseconds
Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs has also banned exports of chip-making equipment to Russia and Belarus. This includes [10]lithography kit that is essential to manufacturing chips.
[11]SAP attracts further criticism for Russia presence, despite promise to leave
[12]Yandex CEO Arkady Volozh resigns after being added to EU sanctions list
[13]Huawei reportedly furloughs Russian staff and stops taking orders
[14]Ukraine war a sorting hat for cyber-governance loyalties: Black Hat founder Jeff Moss
China's government didn't take the news well, issuing [15]a statement on Monday that accused Taiwan of chasing clout and grandstanding with the new export ban.
But this shouldn't come as a surprise, given China's continuing aggression against Taiwan, its displeasure with Taiwan getting closer to [16]the US and [17]Europe , and the Middle Kingdom's [18]friendliness towards Russia. ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/26/trendforce_foundry_capacity/
[2] https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20220530PD204.html
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/19/export_bans_prompt_russia_to/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/11/russia_reveal_supercomputer_to_help/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Yp54-woavnButDs9jvPYwgAAAI4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/80386/index.html
[7] https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium/TYPE-Desktop%20Pentium.html
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yp54-woavnButDs9jvPYwgAAAI4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yp54-woavnButDs9jvPYwgAAAI4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://spie.org/publications/fg06_p1-2_semiconductor_lithography?SSO=1
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/24/sap_russia/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/06/yandex_ceo_arkady_volozh_resigns/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/13/huawei_may_quit_russia/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/12/jeff_moss_ukraine_cyber_governance/
[15] https://twitter.com/MFA_China/status/1533791008483225600
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/02/us_eu_taiwan_trade_talks/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/02/taiwan_claims_breakthrough_in_eu/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/31/gchq_sir_jeremy_fleming_speech/
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: "An arithmetic logic unit of 32 bits or wider"
That's the headline - not the speed. They're limited to 16 bit chips. (And the 386SX was 32 bit internally so probably falls foul of the ban.)
It will be difficult to run a bank on even a roomfull of Arduinos.
Lower spec Arduinos only. There are plenty that are too fast. All Raspberry Pi's are banned, including the Pico.
10Mb/s networking is allowed in half duplex mode but full duplex hits the sanctioned speed. Dial-up and ISDN internet are in but broad band would require a wide interpretation of "up to" to be slow enough. (Starlink is way too fast)
Floppy disks are OK but all hard disks with an IDE interface or better are out. ST-506 and ST-412 hard disks are slow enough. Forget PCIe, PCI and ISA cards. CD-ROMs are theoretically OK up to x16 speed as are x1 speed DVDs but I do not remember any with a slow enough interface.
There is no need to go back to PS/2 keyboards. USB1 is slow enough even at full speed. Video is a problem: 640x480@60Hz black and white looks OK at first sight (18.432Mb/s) but the extra bandwidth required for overscan would take that over the 20Mb/s limit. Colour or grey scale really cut into the resolution or frame rate. ZX Spectrum graphics might just fit under the limit even when you include the "4bits/pixel" output rate.
Overclocked water-cooled BBC micros then ?
Do Taiwan control sales of Arduinos and Raspberry Pis? I know Broadcom use Singapore fabs.
Not sure about Doom
That was rough on a 33mhz, and acceptable on a 40. Maybe Castle Wolfenstein 3D? That worked well on a 286. Putin would like that, given his obsessions with Nazis
meanwhile in Russia...
they announced, today, a NEW! RUSSIAN! laptop, yeah baby!!! I only caught the end of the news, something about 1.5Ghz processor ('Baikal', if I caught it right), up to 16Gb ram (presumably Russian-grown), 512Gb hdd (Russian-built). Presumably with all-Russian linuxky OS. To be released in autumn. This year.
p.s. yes, I'm pretty sure it _will_ come with a screen and keyboard (both Russian-made).
Russia's secret weapon
I bet Taiwan forgot to ban exports of a turbo switch.
Can't blame the Taiwanese for wanting to make invasion of smaller neighbors as unpalatable as possible.
Intermediaries
What's to stop Russia from buying indirectly through intermediaries, though it would cost more?
What's to stop Russia importing products such as laptops from Chinese manufacturers that include such chips? Would Taiwan or the US sanction such companies?
Re: Intermediaries
Nothing except it would cost them many times list price, take a long time, be complicated to setup, involve limited supply volumes and long delivery - and when what's actually delivered is a box with a brick in it - who are they going to complain to ?
Digital Cameras?
May be production will be restarted of the Zenit 35mm camera range.
icon -> "Amateur Photographer" cover model
Re: Digital Cameras?
Apparently made in Belarus so they probably don't have the technology anymore
Re: Digital Cameras?
Zenit under its latest owner Shvabe make high end rangefinders in collaboration with Leica. They are based in Krasnogorsk. Shvabe are under Rostec which is Russian state owned.
"An arithmetic logic unit of 32 bits or wider"
Which rules out 386 either... I've some floppies with 16 bit and 8 bit applications they may like... if they are not under sanctions too...