Sanctions have crippled Baikal’s production and packaging capabilities

Why it matters: Global sanctions against Russian companies have worked in at least one respect: Baikal Electronics can no longer supply enough chips to meet the country’s needs, and half of the chips it produces are defective. Russia is working to build up its domestic capabilities, but it is unclear whether it can catch up.

Baikal Electronics, one of Russia’s major processor developers, has been struggling in the wake of sanctions imposed by the US and UK governments following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Until then, the company ordered the production of chips, including their packaging, from TSMC.

The Taiwan-based chipmaker promptly stopped shipping processors that year because of the sanctions. The sanctions also blocked the Russian company from licensing Arm technology. Baikal, which switched from the Baikal-T series MIPS instruction set architecture to Arm years ago, used the technology in its Baikal-M, -S, and -L series chips.

The supply restrictions forced the company to turn inward to produce packaged and tested silicon. Russian business news outlet Vedomosti recently revealed that about half of the processors packaged in Russia are defective. A source told the paper that the failures are due to equipment that is not configured correctly and not having enough properly trained technicians for the chip packaging.

  • cro_magnon_gilf@sopuli.xyz
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    8 months ago

    If you care about Ukraine, you should start taking this more seriously. Outside of your echo-chamber, Russia has proved resilient to sanctions and their ability to manifacture vital military goods in some crucial areas outpace the west, and by far outpace what is avaliable to Ukraine.

    The much hoped for ukrainian counteroffensive yeilded nothing, and instead Russia is slowly gaining ground, allthewhile expanding its army with new, fresh units and learning to work with or around their shortcomings. Ukraine doesn’t have anything to put its hope to other than simple endurance. And that’s something that Russia has always had a lot of. The outlook is grim.

    Ukraine needs support

    • mindlight@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      There are two important sides to this and you are only focusing one of them.

      One is of course supporting Ukraine, as you point out, but what is also extremely important is not to let Russia get away with their obvious bullshit propaganda.

      Russia is working hard on getting rid of the sanctions. One of the main tools used are to try to get people in the West to believe to Russian economy is unaffected.

      It is not.

      (If it was, Putin wouldn’t fx deal with North Korea like they’ve been doing the last year.)

      So if no one was calling out Putin and his useful idiots on fx Facebook or Lemmy, how long do you think the public in the West would support Ukraine?

      • cro_magnon_gilf@sopuli.xyz
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        8 months ago

        Russia didn’t need NK for anything that the west could have substituted it for. They needed them for ammo. As it stands, with that respite, they are well ahead of Ukraine on that issue because their production is stronger.

        You’re not calling out shit. You’re pandering to delusions that need to be disspelled. Because there are facts. And those facts are that Russia will win if Ukraine doesn’t get more support. Nobody is about to dismantle sanctions against Russia.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Russia has proved resilient to sanctions and their ability to manifacture vital military goods in some crucial areas outpace the west

      Thats cause companies didnt leave like they should have, they just changed their local shop names. And they will never be held accountable for it.

      Its also cause countries, like Poland, are still trading with Russia.

    • Neuromancer@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      manifacture vital military goods in some crucial areas outpace the west

      Artillery rounds. Russia has done a good job keeping up with demand. The news says they are almost out but just keep going.

      I support Ukraine but I was shocked at Americans limited production capabilities for artillery rounds.

      • histic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 months ago

        correct me if I’m wrong but I think we do a lot more close air support then artillery anymore so I’m guessing that’s why but I’m just guessing here

        edit: spelling

        • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          That’s a part of it. The other part is that Ukraine wants our out of date stuff. The artillery rounds that we produce for ourselves aren’t the rounds we are sending to Ukraine. We haven’t manufactured the older generation of rounds for decades, so we are having to ramp up production on products that we discontinued.

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        That’s a part of it. The other part is that Ukraine wants our out of date stuff. The artillery rounds that we produce for ourselves aren’t the rounds we are sending to Ukraine. We haven’t manufactured the older generation of rounds for decades, so we are having to ramp up production on products that we discontinued.

        This was supposed to be a reply to the comment below yours.

        • Neuromancer@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          Nothing we are sending for artillery or rockets or missiles is discontinued. That’s all current military systems. The artillery sent to what our troops use. Not sure why you think we are sending obsolete equipment.

          • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Because the news articles I’ve seen over the last two years indicate that we are giving them last generation equipment and ammo. They haven’t gotten any of the new stuff, or at least it hasn’t been reported on

            • Neuromancer@lemm.ee
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              8 months ago

              155mm ammo is the same ammo we’ve been shooting since at least WW2. They are getting older weapons but they fire the same ammo.

              No we are not giving them our most advanced ammo in large quantities because it’s expensive and we need it.

              The M1 tanks they are being given are still better than anything Russia has. Same with the Bradleys.

              Even our troops don’t have the all the latest and greatest.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      If you care about Ukraine, you should start taking this more seriously.

      The American response to any international conflict is to call your opponents weak, soy, and gay, then spend the next 13 years grinding it out in a hellish knife fight that decimates the conflict zone and a dozen surrounding regions while complaining that they’re not fighting fairly.

      The much hoped for ukrainian counteroffensive yeilded nothing

      Nonsense. It killed a zillion Russian soldiers, by Russia’s own accounting, which probably means it killed ten zillion in fact. The only good Slav is a dead Slav, and we’re going to obliterate the entire Russian population at this rate. More bloody dismemberment via aerial bombardment is always something to get excited about, even if an equal number of Ukrainians are shoved into the meat grinder in the process.

      Ukraine needs support

      Hand them all bayonets and tell them to charge.

      Flash’d all their sabres bare,

      Flash’d as they turn’d in air

      Sabring the gunners there,

      Charging an army, while

      All the world wonder’d:

      Plunged in the battery-smoke

      Right thro’ the line they broke;

      Cossack and Russian

      Reel’d from the sabre-stroke

      Shatter’d and sunder’d.

      And, you know, some other stuff.

      • auzas_1337
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        8 months ago

        You’re aware that there are other Slavs than Russians tho, right? For example, Ukrainians are Slavs.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          And we’re perfectly happy feeding them into the meat grinder of war by way of forced conscription. We also don’t seem to give too many shits about the livelihoods of people in Poland, Belarus, the Czechs/Slovaks, or the former Yugoslav states.

          • auzas_1337
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            8 months ago

            By “we” I assume you mean Americans? I’m a Latvian and from my perspective, you don’t have to give too much of a shit about the states you named. A lot of them are doing just fine. Especially Poland, Czechia and Slovenia.

            What I personally care about, not just when it comes to Americans, is a bit more of a spine. I’m sure Putin would break faster if the pressure was harder. And I’m sure Europe could take the discomforts of war time economy. Instead there’s been pussyfooting.

            That said, I’m just an average Joe, I might just be ignorant.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              I’m a Latvian

              I’m so sorry. That must be awful.

              What I personally care about, not just when it comes to Americans, is a bit more of a spine.

              I’m a little shocked to hear this from a Latvian, as you guys got fucked up pretty hard by Operations Redskin and Meteor. Feels like an Italian pining for the days of Eisenhower’s GLADIO or a Cambodian saying how much they missed the foreign policy of Richard Nixon.

              I’m sure Putin would break faster if the pressure was harder.

              I’m not sure what additional pressure would look like. Part of the problem with trying to amp up pressure on Putin is that you do that by applying pressure to his allies. And if they break towards Putin because you showed up with too many sticks and not enough carrots, they’re that much less likely to side with you again in the future.

              Estonia, Sweden and Finland have been getting a ton of carrots relative to Poland, Hungary, and Turkey. The Saudis know they are too critical to seriously threaten. The Israelis know they’ve got the Americans by the balls, so they can do whatever the fuck they like. Meanwhile, the BRICS (-R) - who never really had a dog in the fight to begin with - are finding fewer and fewer reasons to work with increasingly stingy and racist American diplomats.

              Which direction do you really think South Africa would go if given an ultimatum? What about India, a country far more reliant on Russian gas imports than American exports? We already pissed off Brazil by playing footsy with Bolsonaro for four interminable years.

              And when the international community sees Biden as a dead man walking into the next election, there’s far less confidence that he’ll be there to fulfill any kind of threat or promise relative to Putin or Xi, who aren’t going anywhere.