Why did the Soviet Union still lose the Cold War on chips, despite the importance of technology and funding from the state?

In 1984, a Soviet engineer named Alexei Pakitnov developed the phenomenal game Tetris while fishing at work.Alexei PakitnovFriends who have played Tetris may have a deep understanding

In 1984, a Soviet engineer named Alexei Pakitnov developed the phenomenal game Tetris while fishing at work.

Alexei Pakitnov

Friends who have played Tetris may have a deep understanding. This game seems ordinary and uninteresting.

But truly immersing oneself in it is extremely easy to become addicted.

Due to its strong playability, Tetris quickly spread among the Soviet civil service class after its release, and later spread overseas.

At this moment, Nintendo Corporation of Japan was about to release its first generation portable handheld Gameboy and was eager to obtain the copyright of Tetris.

So Nintendo sent representatives to Moscow to negotiate and purchase the copyright of the game.

Gameboy handheld

According to the laws of the Soviet Union at that time, the games developed by Pakitnov belonged to collective property and individuals could not profit by selling games.

Therefore, the representatives of the negotiations between the Soviet side and Nintendo were not Pakitnov, but several senior officials from the Soviet Security Agency and the Ministry of Commerce.

During the negotiations, Soviet officials made a request to Nintendo representatives that the price be negotiable, on the condition that Nintendo would transfer the manufacturing technology of game consoles so that the Soviet people could also play Tetris.

This proposal was reasonable, but the Nintendo representative decisively refused.

Because it was during the chip war between the United States and Japan at that time, the relationship between the two countries was slightly awkward.

And before that, the United States had already said hello.

The general meaning is that we have now reached the decisive stage of the Cold War. Anyone who still wants to earn American dollars is not allowed to export technology to the Soviet Union. Even technology in the civilian field is not feasible.

In 1987, Toshiba did not believe in evil and sold four civilian CNC machine tools to the Soviet Union for $3.5 billion.

As a result, the Reagan administration in the United States caught the "Toshiba incident" and punished Toshiba with a huge sum of money.

Then he warned the Japanese government to be careful of your dog's head if such incidents occur again.

Under pressure, the Japanese Ministry of Trade and Industry had to urgently issue a notice afterwards, requiring Japanese companies to be extremely cautious when cooperating with the Soviet Union and not to let the US seize the opportunity.

US congressman angrily smashes Toshiba Radio

So, although the Soviet Union was willing to sell game copyrights at cabbage prices, Nintendo, known for its materialism, still dared not take advantage of this advantage.

In this transaction, it is not difficult to find that in the 1980s, the Soviet Union could produce various types of missiles at the speed of sausage production, but in the field of civilian semiconductors, it was so lonely that even game consoles could not be built well.

This is the Soviet Union's "Battle of the Sea" arcade.

Due to technical issues, the machine does not have a screen, and players can only see the "game screen" through a periscope.

It's probably like this.

But as is well known, the Soviet Union was a famous mathematical powerhouse, and it also developed the semiconductor industry almost at the same time as the United States.

Why did the Soviet Union get so far behind in this field over the past few decades?

By sorting through history, we will find that the problem lies with the Soviet Union itself.

During World War II, both Allied and Axis powers used a large number of planes to bomb each other's military targets.

After practical combat, it was discovered that in order to get off the plane, it was necessary to accurately calculate and draw a "shooting chart". Only by checking the table can the angle of the muzzle be determined in order to ensure that the shells fired by the anti-aircraft gun are centered on the flying target.

However, each data in this process requires thousands of calculations to obtain, and a dozen people using hand operated mechanical computers take several months to complete a "chart".

In response to this situation, American scientists attempted to study general-purpose computers to improve computational efficiency.

On February 14, 1946, with the efforts of countless scientists, the world's first general-purpose computer, the Eniac, was born at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.

Although the "Eniac" thing is also called a computer, it has a "small" drawback compared to current PCs.

That's the big psychopath, with a length of 30 meters, a width of 6 meters, a height of 2.4 meters, and an area of approximately 170 square meters. A total of 17468 electronic tubes, 7200 crystal diodes, 1500 relays, 70000 resistors, 10000 capacitors, 1500 relays, and over 6000 switches were used, weighing 30 tons.

At that time, it was said that as long as Eniac turned on, half of Philadelphia's electricity would be affected because the electricity consumption was too high.

Not only that, due to the use of a large number of electronic tubes, "Eniac" often burns electronic tubes during operation, and the engineering personnel responsible for maintenance do nothing all day long, busy with replacing electronic tubes.

Although the first generation of general-purpose computers is now seen as such a wonder.

But back then, it was a groundbreaking product.

The emergence of "Eniac" can compress the calculation that used to take half an hour to just 30 seconds.

It is precisely because of its high efficiency that the US government is willing to allocate funds for the development of this "secret weapon".

However, it is well known that during the Cold War, Western countries had no secrets in front of the Soviet Union.

So it wasn't long before the Soviet Union learned the news and successfully developed Europe's first general-purpose computer, MESM.

Compared to the "Eniac" in the United States, MESM has slightly weaker computing power, only about 60% of the former.

But because only 6000 electronic tubes were used, MESM is less prone to malfunctions and has higher efficiency.

Due to the tendency of electronic tubes to break, some scientists in the United States began studying transistor technology at that time.

In December 1947, Bell Laboratories in the United States developed transistors.

Compared with electronic tubes, transistors have advantages such as faster computation speed, lower heat generation, lower power consumption, lower cost, and smaller size.

Since transistors were more advanced, the Soviet Union would naturally not turn a blind eye.

In 1950, the Soviet Union successfully developed transistors.

In the following years, the United States and the Soviet Union began to catch up in the semiconductor field.

In 1955, Bell Laboratories in the United States developed the world's first all transistor computer, TRADIC.

The Soviet Union also launched its own transistor computer M-4 in 1959.

By the early 1960s, although the United States had always been a leader, the Soviet Union had never been left behind, and in the field of transistor computers, it was basically at the same level as the United States.

However, in the evolution process from transistors to integrated circuits, the Soviet Union chose the wrong path.

Due to historical reasons, the Soviet Union has not had peace since its founding, either in hot wars or during the Cold War.

This survival pressure caused deep "post traumatic stress disorder" among the Soviet people.

I always feel that nuclear war is about to break out sooner or later, and the weapons produced must first be able to withstand nuclear electromagnetic pulses.

And electronic tubes, due to their simple structure, are more substantial than transistors.

So in the 1960s, the Soviet Union and the United States embarked on completely different paths in the field of integrated circuits.

The Soviet Union chose to abandon transistors and focus on miniaturizing electronic tubes.

But after years of hard work, Soviet engineers discovered the electronic tube and it was not small.

Soviet electronic tube

When the Soviet Union was betting on electronic tubes, the United States initially had the same mentality.

The US government and military both believe that transistors have almost no defense against the electronic pulses generated by nuclear explosions, and advocate for electronic tubes rather than transistors.

But there is a slight difference between the United States and the Soviet Union, where the semiconductor industry is completely dominated by the government. R&D has always been driven by national forces.

The Soviet government and military were only concerned about the products produced by engineers, whether they could be used in war, without considering whether they could make money or be relegated to the civilian market.

The semiconductor industry in the United States is market-oriented and grows freely.

For American consumers, I will use whichever transistor or electronic tube is lightweight and easy to use. As for which one is more suitable for nuclear war, it's not something I should worry about.

For American semiconductor companies, the military is indeed a major customer, but the civilian market is larger in scale.

Due to market forces, transistors are becoming smaller and better performing in the United States.

Transistors that were originally considered unsuitable for military use are gradually becoming accepted by the military.

In 1965, Gordon Moore, one of the "Eight Rebels" of Fairchild and also one of the founders of Intel, imagined the future in Electronics magazine.

He believes that in the future, the number of transistors on integrated circuits will double every 18 to 24 months. The price of individual transistors will continue to decline, and the computing power of chips will become stronger and stronger.

This is the famous "Moore's Law".

At that time, Moore only imagined the future for 10 years, but Moore's Law seemed to be a guiding light for the semiconductor industry, guiding its development for 70 years.

The Soviet people never expected that in a few decades, transistors could reach the nanoscale.

In the mid-19th Vietnam War, the Soviet Union discovered that the US military had already started using semiconductor integrated circuits in the latest fighter jets and missiles.

And the measured data of these new weapons are much better than the weapons of the Soviet army.

Since it has been proved that chips are easier to use than electronic tubes, the Soviet military had to admit the progressiveness of transistors, and tried to stop the attempt to miniaturize electronic tubes and began to turn to the research of transistors and integrated circuits.

However, starting from scratch is no longer possible at this time.

So, the Soviet Union decided to cross the river by feeling the eagle sauce and began to copy American chips 360 degrees without any blind spots.

However, due to a mistake in the early development direction, the electronic technology theory and production process of the entire Soviet Union were severely disconnected from the West at that time, and this gap could not be bridged solely by imitation.

It is often difficult for the Soviet Union to reproduce a version of the chip, while the American chip has been iterated several times.

For example, in 1989, Soviet engineers successfully replicated the 80286 microprocessor in a laboratory, with a manufacturing process of 1.5 micrometers.

And this is a product launched by Intel in 1982.

With the development of technology, reverse engineering is becoming increasingly difficult to do. Soviet chips can hardly keep up with the times.

Most importantly, the Soviet Union had been producing electronic tubes for over a decade, and hundreds of engineers, workers, and technicians across the country were focused on the electronic tube industry.

If transistors were to replace electronic tubes at this time, it would mean thousands of related practitioners would be unemployed or transferred.

As the saying goes, "Millions of canal workers are tied to food and clothing." At that time, Soviet scientists, engineers, and factories studying electronic tubes, although they knew how electronic tubes could develop, could not compete with transistors. But in order to ensure a job, an anti transistor community of interests was formed.

Anyway, it's also spending money from the country, and there's no demand for profit. Let's just muddle around like this, every day counts.

In this situation, the electronics industry in the Soviet Union presented a strange phenomenon, with a continued waste of a large amount of manpower and material resources invested in the unpromising electronic tube industry.

On the one hand, it is to cope with the semi public research fraud and imitation of American chips by superiors.

In the 1980s, the Soviet microcomputer VEFMikro1025 was modeled after the Intel 8080

In 1982, the CIA discovered that the Soviet Union was massively stealing Western chip technology.

So in November of that year, the United States reached an agreement with Western European countries to establish a joint technology and economic strategic coordination mechanism for the Soviet Union, which comprehensively controlled and restricted the flow of new technologies to the Soviet Union.

The semiconductor industry in the Soviet Union had no market funding to support it, and now it is unable to engage in international technological exchanges.

The technology blockade imposed by the United States ultimately led to the Soviet Union transferring technology to Nintendo in the late 1980s in order for the Soviet people to also play Tetris.

On December 26, 1991, the Red Flag landed and the Soviet Union disintegrated.

Without orders from the military industry, factories that used to produce circuits in the Soviet Union went bankrupt, causing a direct shock to the semiconductor industry.

Even more tragically, due to the Soviet leadership's industrial layout, semiconductor and microelectronics industrial bases and scattered factories were deliberately allocated to Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic countries.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, although Russia inherited more scientific research institutions, its production bases were not in its hands.

There is an ancient Chinese saying that 'a skillful woman cannot cook without rice.' Now that there is no 'rice cooker', 'skillful women' have to flee Europe and America in order to make a living.

I have to admit that the talents trained by the Soviet Union are still very impressive.

For example, after immigrating to the United States, Pentkovsky, who once worked on CPUs in the Soviet Union, became Intel's chief engineer and led the architecture research and development of the Pentium 3, bringing a golden period of development to Intel.

Vladimir Pentkovsky

With the fragmentation of the electronics industry and the loss of a large number of top computer talents, the once divided Soviet semiconductor industry has no chance of turning around.

Taking history as a guide, one can know the rise and fall. Looking back at the rise and fall of the semiconductor industry in the Soviet Union, we can at least draw some inspiration.

The first thing is to respect the market.

Semiconductor is a very expensive industry, and the US semiconductor industry has achieved great success in the civilian market, providing sufficient blood and forming a virtuous cycle.

The Soviet Union relied solely on financial appropriations, and if the upper echelons did not support it, it was easy to fall into a situation of weak development.

Additionally, market competition is brutal.

Under free competition, even if one goes wrong, it is easy to be corrected. Because you cannot correct it in a timely manner, the market will teach you how to do it.

However, the Soviet Union, due to its neglect of the market, was unable to determine which transistor or electronic tube was more promising, ultimately leading to a dead end.

The second is to not be afraid of difficulties and persist in doing the right thing.

The Soviet Union was focused on developing electronic tubes, and besides the will of the upper class, another reason was that everyone was eating a big pot of rice.

People are unwilling to try unknown transistors because they are familiar with electronic tubes.

This lesson still has guiding significance for us today.

Since the chip was sanctioned by the United States, although we have used "stacked chip" technology to exchange performance with less advanced processes.

But after all, this is not a long-term solution. We still need to put in some effort to make our craft truly advanced.

The third is to adhere to independent innovation and prevent plagiarism.

Copying this behavior can shorten the gap in a short period of time.

But once addicted to it, it means you will always be just a follower.

At that time, the Soviet Union imitated the United States, and no matter how well it imitated, it could only imitate old technology.

This generation hasn't figured it out yet, the next generation will come out.

If we cannot embark on an unimagined new path, how can we lead others in technology?

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