Russia won’t refuse from making own elementary base

In spite of all technological difficulties and legging behind the international level in making electronic components Russian policy makers do not agree to use imported stuff and force national manufacturers to use Russian made components. At the same time the government is trying to boost national production of the elementary base.

Photo: Russia won’t refuse from making own elementary base

In early 2007 the government launched a sub-program on developing electronic components industry. It was part of the federal purpose oriented program National Technological Base 2007-2011. Now the level of this sub-program has been raised to the status of a separate federal purpose oriented program Development of the Electronic Components Base and Radio-Electronics 2008-2015. Its implementation has been prolonged from 2011 to 2015, but more important the financing from the federal budget increased almost five times up to 110 billion RUB.

The reason for the above changes is that the former sub-program did not pay proper attention to several key organizations which develop and manufacture radio-electronic equipment. According to the public statements of the Deputy Director of the Military Department of the Ministry of Industry Vladimir Minaev the new federal purpose-oriented program got six new directions of the development, including some principal: creation of the unified electronic modules and basic bearing designs, creation of the typical technological processes and development of the technologies of creating radio-electronic systems and complexes.

The total sum of investments into the program will make 187 billion RUB, of which 110 billion RUB to come from the state budget. The developers of the program, however, assume that the private investors will finance the production of the chips sized 0,18 micron, which is planned for 2008. Production of the 0,13 micron chips is scheduled for 2009-2010; 0,1-0,09 micron for 2011 and 0,045 micron for 2015.

Naturally, this decision was supported by the representatives of the Russian radio-electronic industry. General Director of the concern Vega Vladimir Verba unreservedly stated that it is very important to raise national elementary base to a world level, because it is better to make defense related radio-electronic systems of the domestic components. Earlier his colleagues expressed an opinion that trying to catch up with the technologies spread in the leading industries by making copies based on the same principles is not correct. It makes lagging behind eternal and fixes national industry to foreign ideas. Instead it was suggested to develop national radio-electronic industry on own technological approaches. The head of the radio-electronic division of the company Sitronix Gennady Krasnikov thinks that to achieve that Russian government has to ensure steady demand for this kind of products inside the country.

The above mentioned statements coincide with the recently declared position of the majority faction of the State Duma United Russia, which is working out the legal conditions to make Russian companies use Russian made electronic components. According to the Chairman of the Committee of the State Duma on CIS and Com-Patriots Affairs Andrey Kokoshin using western elementary base works like drug addiction, especially in the sphere of the software. The politician mentioned that Russia will hardly be able of making competitive personal computers, but can make a breakthrough in the development of supercomputers, becoming among 4-5 leading countries in this area.

The peculiarities of the technologies of microelectronics make them profit making only if the production is organized on a large scale. One of the instruments the government can use to assist national chip makers is to attract them to the national projects of creating the equipment for the digital TV, navigation systems, smart-cards and RFID-systems.

The developers of the new purpose-oriented program count that the program will increase the volume of the radio-electronic production six times by 2015 in comparison with the current year, reaching the level of 300 billion RUB. In the nearest eight years the state budget it to get 125 billion RUB of the net discounted income. The pay off period for the private investors keeping in mind the net profit and depreciation is evaluated at 8,1 years.

Yuri Seleznev
Pravda.Ru