Russian Chip Manufacturers Sound the Alarm

Russian processor developers — MCST, Baikal Electronics, Elvis, and NTC Module — have appealed to the government requesting that the rules for classifying hardware as domestic products remain unchanged. Starting from 2022, all computing equipment included in the national registry must use Russian processors. However, at the end of June, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation published a new draft of Government Decree No. 719, proposing to postpone the mandatory use of Russian processors until 2023 and remove the requirement for assembling system boards in Russia. This could severely impact the sales of Russian microelectronics developers, despite up to 70% of their costs being subsidized by the government.

The position of the market leaders is that the established course towards import substitution should be carried out consistently. A sharp change in the rules began at the end of 2020. The introduction of Russian computing technology within government procurement projects requires coordinated efforts from all participants. The transition to new technology and the adaptation of Russian software for domestic operating systems are labor-intensive processes, and the government is in a position to help with compensation for implementation and legislative support.

Our company has been assisting the Russian Elbrus platform for many years, adapting and optimizing global software technologies for it. The system software developed by UniPro engineers is included in the Elbrus OS distributions and is successfully used in various applied projects.