
Mikron 1663RU1 – first Russian 90nm chip: weekend die-shot - atomlib
http://zeptobars.ru/en/read/Mikron-1663RU1-16Mibit-SRAM-russia-zelenograd
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mattgrice
What is the target market for a Russian 90nm 16Mbit SRAM? The only customers I
can think of would be Russian defense contractors where domestic sourcing
might be required. The fact that it's in a (gigantic by current standards)
ceramic QFP would also suggest an aerospace application.

edit: here is a part from TI that might be similar, that Mouser has listed for
$6,075.49. It is export-restricted, radiation hardened, and has advanced error
detection and correction.

[http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas-
Instruments/SMV512...](http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas-
Instruments/SMV512K32HFG/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMt9mBA6nIyysB7QeAAJmsUtO4zpepNnmDY%3d)

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Osmium
> The fact that it's in a (gigantic by current standards) ceramic QFP would
> also suggest an aerospace application.

(For anyone else like myself who didn't know what a QFP was:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quad_Flat_Package](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quad_Flat_Package)
)

Why does a ceramic QFP suggest an aerospace application?

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steckerbrett
Essentially any time you see ceramic packages they are either US or Russian
military where cost is not a consideration. Aerospace is very similar in their
requirements for ruggedness and performance over temperature swings, so often
end up using the same packed chips as the military rather than consumer level
ones. Lots of early medical electronics like pacemakers seem to use military
spec packages as well, presumably just because they are in a space where you
can't really dig them out easily and replace some faulty consumer grade 74
series logic.

~~~
ufmace
I think I saw some of those when I was working with guys who designed oilfield
tools. It was always a challenge to find stuff with a decent MTBF in the 150C+
oilwell environment. IIRC, there was no published info on it, so we bought a
ton of different brands and models, tested them all in-house, and built tools
with the ones that performed the best.

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Havoc
To what end? If they're afraid of backdoors why not use 3x commercial (in this
case superior) gear & compare outputs constantly? Cheaper, faster & more
reliable, no?

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vbezhenar
They might be afraid of sanctions from other countries. Russia should be able
to self-sustain at least to certain degree (military, providing basic services
to citizens).

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joshuapants
> 1663RU1 has became their first 90nm product reached commercial customers

Neat. Anyone have an idea who their customers are/what this chip would be used
for?

~~~
nmcfarl
T.zssdt

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yeukhon
So how does this compare to other high-end Intel chips out there where they
are already are at even lower nm? What is so special about this chip?

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djcapelis
> So how does this compare to other high-end Intel chips out there where they
> are already are at even lower nm?

It compares poorly. There's nothing this chip can do that's special or more
functional. It's just an SRAM, which is usually the first step in proving a
process works and can produce something useful.

They'll probably eventually use this to implement some logic which means the
chips would actually do computations instead of just storing data. For
embedded applications, there's a decent amount you can do with a 90nm ASIC
process, but there's only a few applications that would actually make it
reasonable to pay the price to build a whole fab to make them.

The only thing that's special about this chip is that it's made in Russia,
which means that if you're Russian, you can get a chip made in Russia. Which
is something a military or government would care about, but few other people
do.

