The Russians are coming!
13 April 2011
Author : Anand K. Sethi
No, this does not quite refer to the zany comedy movie of 1966 regarding a Russian (read Soviet) submarine and its crew positioned off the New England coast of the US!
In fact this is about the first really serious move by the Russians to get on to the International mainstream electronics bandwagon after decades of a ‘go it alone’ policy based on a combination of self reliance and dollops of secrecy especially where the requirements of their military, space and nuclear programs were concerned.
Before I write any more here, I do have a confession to make. I have had some knowledge of the Russian (and Soviet) electronics sector for many years now. Studying at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (a Russian aided institute through UNESCO) in the 1960s I worked with a Russian Professor as my guide on Solid State Strain Gauges (now fashionably called MEMS, I believe). I still have my copies (in English) of ‘Semiconductor Devices’ by Stupelman and Filaretov, ‘Semiconductor Physics’ by Kireev and ‘Electronic Optics and Electron Beam Devices’ by Zhigarev.
There was nothing wrong with the basic technology. In fact in many ways at that time they were at par if not ahead of what was then the level of technology in the west. They had their own designed electronics manufacturing equipment such as diffusion furnaces, bonders, excellent photolithography equipment etc. The problem was, at least to my mind, that the finished products were sort of small batch production based on specifications and requirements coming down from Ministries such as the Ministry of Radio Production, and the Ministry of Electronic Instrument Production. There was no real standardisation or scalability based on open market requirements and the type numbering was absolutely bizarre with no relationship to accepted international standards.
Since the late 1980s and the early 1990s after some brief visits to some electronic establishments, post Gorbachev’s Perestroika, one sort of lost touch with Russian electronics although once in a while one did see the odd Russian calculator, rechargeable torches, fibre optics systems and computers with designs ‘knocked off’ from popular western models. And then suddenly as a bolt from the blue one heard a statement purportedly from President Medvedev that a massive effort is to be made to bring Russian electronics up to International standards. In June 2010 President Medvedev visited Silicon Valley in California accompanied by Governor Schwarzenegger to see what made this famous area tick.
On his return, President Medvedev announced that Russia would establish its own version of Silicon Valley in a place called Skolkovo with the complex being termed Innograd. The core educational and research institute, a sort of Russian Stanford University, would be established in Skolkovo by an Indian – Russian conglomerate called the Sun Group. In October 2010, Schwarzenegger was invited to visit Innograd and apparently was duly impressed by the rapid strides made in such a short time.
In parallel to the effort in establishing Innograd was the rapid establishment and financing of the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnology (RUSNANO) with the objective of creating a world beating nano industry by 2015 especially in the clusters of:
• Solar energy and energy saving
• Nanostructured materials
• Biotech
• Precision mechanical engineering
• Optoelectronics and nanoelectronics
• Infrastructure projects
Anatoly Chubais, a somewhat dynamic former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia was named as the Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of RUSNANO and given the unenviable task of achieving a $30 billion turnover by 2015.
RUSNANO and the Indian origin Sun Group have now signed a collaboration agreement for business development in nanotechnology as well as looking at expanding Indo–Russian collaboration in global technological chains. With India setting a target of 20,000 MW of solar power generation capacity by year 2022, one of the projects RUSNANO is looking at is a $200 million joint venture to manufacture in India Solar photovoltaic module grade silicon ingots with a capacity of some 2000 tonnes. It may be recalled that RUSNANO already has a tie up with Renova of California for a range of solar products.
It may also be recalled that RUSNANO recently invested $700 million in Plastic Logic of Cambridge, UK, a world leader in thin and flexible plastic displays (RUSNANO finalises investment in Plastic Logic). At the time of this writing it is not clear if there would be an India connection via RUSNANO.
Another Russian electronics company making news in India is Sitronics, which has recently opened a large Research and Development Centre in India. Sitronics makes IC chips (mainly for SIM cards and RFIDs), is involved in Surface Mount Assembly and also produces electronic tickets with embedded chips. They also manufacture and supply radio relay systems and supply large numbers of their RUIM cards (equivalent to GSM Sim cards) to CDMA mobile services operators in India. They have plans for many more items in India including an ‘intellectual’ Video Security system and mobile data centres containing all the network and communication equipment, servers, fire fighting systems, climate control and power generation / conditioning all in a 20ft container.
Yes, the Russians are indeed coming!
As always, the opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of EMTWorldWide. If you would like to comment on this article please contact the Editor at: tim.fryer@imlgroup.co.uk.
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