Mikron 1663RU1 – first Russian 90nm chip: weekend die-shot

http://zeptobars.ru/en/read/Mikron-1663RU1-16Mibit-SRAM-russia-zelenograd

by atomlib • 11 years ago

70 22 11 years ago

zeptobars.ru

joshuapants• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

T.zssdt

mattgrice2• 11 years ago

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...

minthd2• 11 years ago

They want to reduce dependency on the u.s. . So maybe for use in their embedded industrial stuff ,and as a first step before producing a microcontroller (which 90nm is perfectly fine for) ?

BarsMonster3• 11 years ago

90nm is probably too good for microcontrollers :-) STMicroelecronics make most of (cheaper) microcontrollers on 180nm, AVR's are closer to 500nm... There are lots of Russian microcontrollers already available (based on Cortex-M3, M0, M4 cores), but at the moment they are manufactured overseas (X-Fab is favorite fab in Russia). Domestically-manufactured microcontrollers are much simpler (AVR or old PIC-level, there is even Russian AVR clone, which is not very widely used).

mattgrice2• 11 years ago

Could be... but there are many non-US places to get 90nm chips made. This is 10 year old technology. The only explanation that makes sense to me is that they needed not just a non-US source but a domestic one. I can't think of any mainstream commercial use for a chip of this kind.

Osmium• 11 years ago

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 )

Why does a ceramic QFP suggest an aerospace application?

trevyn• 11 years ago

Ceramic (vs plastic) is better suited for extended-temperature environments, which often implies aerospace or military.

steckerbrett• 11 years ago

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.

BarsMonster3• 11 years ago

That is right, this is definitely for military and aerospace markets (there is not much modern civilian microelectronics manufacturing in Russia), but there are no redundancy or error correction on this chip. It is made on bulk silicon ("civilian" technology, rad-hard chips used SOI/SOS wafers in the past), and there are no tricks implemented to make it radiation hardened (like 8T DICE SRAM cells, embedded ECC with scrubbing, anti-latchup wells, special transistor layout to reduce radiation-induced leakage... e.t.c). But even in non-hardened variant with some precautions it could be used on space applications outside radiation belts.

sebastianavina• 11 years ago

yeah, I know some of those words

sliverstorm• 11 years ago

There may not be a major target market. SRAM is one of the easiest kinds of chips to make- very regular patterning, doesn't need an army of engineers to design... so it could be a launch vehicle whose primary goal is to flush out the design & manufacturing process, with other chips to follow.

The 6T cell is also a critical building block to many kinds of chips, and it in itself can be hard to get right, so nailing it down early in an easier chip is good.

yeukhon• 11 years ago

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?

SXX• 11 years ago

What is so special about this chip?

It's basically first real confirmation that 90nm can be produced in Russia. In past there was a lot of press and talk, but noone ever seen actual chips.

djcapelis• 11 years ago

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.

Havoc• 11 years ago

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?

adwn• 11 years ago

Wouldn't the other two chips have the exact same backdoor and react in the same way to the same inputs?

vbezhenar• 11 years ago

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).

Mikron 1663RU1 – first Russian 90nm chip: weekend die-shot

Related Stories