Despite Successful Trials, Baikal-M Microprocessor Packaging Project Stopped
The completion of the long-term domestic project on the final-stage packaging of Baikal-M processes developed entirely within the country ended in vain. The GS Nanotech facility in Kaliningrad had realized it was going to produce successful outcome but can no longer be undertaken due to an acute shortage of processor crystals-the core components that must be assembled and supplied for chip manufacture.
An Experiment with a Successful Outcome Gets Cold Reality of Supply Chain
The project dealt with packaging at the wafer level, the last step of putting a processor crystal into protective housing for a connection to the board. During the experiment, GS Nanotech had an 85-percent yield of marketable specimens, which is deemed very high for such a complicated process. But, as Sergey Plastinin, director of the corporation, explained, "for stable serial production you need to have at least one thousand pieces a month; at the moment, all you have are dozens made during the experiment."
And yet, at this time, GS Nanotech has had equipment in other respects, successfully completing an experimental multi-chip assembly for Malt System with a reliability rate of 100%.
Wider Challenges for Russia's Microchip Industry
The fate of the Baikal-M processor is closely bound up with problems that go beyond the scope of the particular device. Packaging domestic chips is a significant investment task at present, which requires a lot of comprehensive state support and market consolidation, experts believe. Russian microchips, particularly Baikal-M, have fallen several generations behind their Western counterparts and have been developed mainly for the state market. Thus, it has a very narrow market, heavily dependent on government support, making it more vulnerable to the disruption of the supply chain, particularly crystal shortage problems.
