According to reports, the VEB has provided Russia's largest chipmaker Mikron Group with 7 billion rubles in assistance as part of a loan that has a time period of ten years and uses the chip company's manufacturing equipment as collateral. Mikron is among the oldest chip companies in the world, and it is another relic of Russia's Soviet past that saw the company set up in 1964.
In terms of manufacturing technologies and processes, Mikron is far behind its global counterparts, and reports suggest that it kicked off mass production of the 65 nanometer manufacturing process node in 2020. For comparison, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) started to manufacture 65 nm chips in 2005, and Intel Corporation started its 65 nm production in 2007.
Additionally, despite the fact that it manufactures older nodes. Mikron is believed to have a production capacity of only 6,000 wafers per month according to today's report. Coupled with the fact that older nodes constrain a chip wafer in terms of the number of chips that can be squeezed into it, the limited production capacity places an extra premium on Mikron's chips.7