Soviet production of electronic components

[Vtile]

..But how this relates to soviet production of electronics components?

[Cerebus]

..But how this relates to soviet production of electronics components?

Nothing, but Bud's never seen a thread he can't derail by throwing some charged remark into it.

[Rick Law]

The size of economy in my view matters a great deal since that defines your natural market as well as your "safe" market.  The size of available resource is obviously dependent on the size of the economy.  Less visible perhaps is with production or manufacturing and for when one has to import/export to survive, the risk of development just increased significantly.  Risk of course is a big impediment to development, so size matters.

Given the strength of the Soviet military, one often forget how a small GDP they had.  Soviet era numbers are hard to come by now, but looking at projected number for this year (2018):

GDP (trillion dollars/1,000,000 million dollars)
1 @ 20.2  USA
2 @ 13.1  China
3 @   5.1  Japan
4 @   3.9  Germany
5 @   2.8  France
... UK, India, Brazil, Italy, Canada
11@  1.60  Korea (presumably South Korea only)
12@  1.52  Russia
13@  1.48  Australia
14@  1.42  Spain

In GDP terms, Russia is not even the size of South Korea.  It is less than 10% of the USA and just over 10% of China.

The other telling stat PPP:
 1 @  25.1  China
 2 @  20.2  USA
 3 @  10.3  India
 4 @  5.55  Japan
 5 @  4.31  Germany,
 6 @  4.14  Russia
 
Given Russia's limited size in terms of GDP/PPP, they just don't have the scale of what the larger economies can support.  Technology development in almost all known era and country came from first use and learn from others, then copy/imitate, then create their own almost as good, then, perhaps exceed that of the original tech leader.  But to "create your own" you need a market for it and their market simply is not that big.

In my view, given their small size economy, Russia is doing exceedingly well.

However, I think Russia needs to buy from itself more - that will keep more of the dollars in-country for further development.  What to me is clear is: Russia is too small to compete with China or USA on it's own, it needs partners.

EU seems to be suffering from self-inflicted wounds in their economy.  They just absorbed millions of adults to educate.  While it is too new to be reflected in current number yet, but absorbing millions of uneducated adults has to take a toll.  This is not an era of human muscle powered economy so cheap labor is not going to help technology much.  Until those new arrivals risen to par, EU is in "holding up" or "catch-up back to what it was" mode.  Besides, there is the risk of needing another generation or more for that to happen.

If one takes EU (as partners to Russia) out of the picture, there is Japan, India, and Korea in their near-by geography.  That will put them near as "viable competitor" to the big-two but still not as big.  Lacking a bigger safe-market or a bigger resource pool, Russian technology development (in manufacturing or creating new technology) will have a hard time keeping up with the big-two.  The future will be an interesting one.

Edit - opps, forgot to include the link to the GDP/PPP source I used:
^{http://statisticstimes.com/economy/countries-by-projected-gdp.php}

[nctnico]

EU seems to be suffering from self-inflicted wounds in their economy.  They just absorbed millions of adults to educate.

Perhaps you should look up USA immigration statistics first! It seems the USA has a steady stream of immigrants of about 1 million each year. The EU has much more strict immigration rules compared to the USA and many refugees will be send back as soon as it is safe for them to return. Also there are twice as much people living in the EU than the USA so the percentage of immigrants is lower.

[Rick Law]

EU seems to be suffering from self-inflicted wounds in their economy.  They just absorbed millions of adults to educate.

Perhaps you should look up USA immigration statistics first! It seems the USA has a steady stream of immigrants of about 1 million each year. The EU has much more strict immigration rules compared to the USA and many refugees will be send back as soon as it is safe for them to return. Also there are twice as much people living in the EU than the USA so the percentage of immigrants is lower.

You are certainly right there.  Whether USA can continue to have an advanced society will greatly depend on if we can educate new arrival and bring them up to our norm.  The current MO in absorbing new arrivals seem to be making what they are the norm rather than bringing them up to our norm.  So the answer can hardly make any of us optimistic.  USA and the EU may very well sink together.

As I said in the last sentence of that same reply, "The future will be an interesting one."  We may well see our decedents living like our ancestors.

[Vtile]

Russia is odd bird, always have been and will be long to the future. One should remember that basicly the feodalist slavery at there did not end at 1917, but at 1991. The most velthiest country in the world measured by natural resources yet economic dwarf.  Partly because there is no real protection of capital or justice, since the   corruption is so bad.

[raptor1956]

Quick comment about US A-bomb and Japan.  Given the fact that Japan had distributed a lot of the manufacturing into the neighborhoods where people lived, many homes having a drill press or lathe etc, it would be fair to say that everything was a legitimate target -- by the norms of war.  But, by the time the bomb was ready most of the major targets had already been obliterated using conventional and incendiary bombs so the idea was to test the a-bomb on targets that were still largely intact.  Again, by that time there wasn't much that was still intact.  The targets pretty much picked themselves given the above.

As to the Russian electronics thing ... perhaps the biggest problem Russia had was that because they were so successful at espionage and saved a lot by not having to develop things themselves they didn't invest as much in research as a consequence.  They did whatever they needed for military work but there wasn't much money left for consumer electronics.  So, there great success at spying actually hurt them in the end.  But, just to be clear, Russia has and always has had brilliant scientists and engineers and they did more with less than pretty much anyone on the planet.  The current political order isn't helping them move forward, sadly!


Brian

[PrecisionAnalytic]

Kind of scope creep on the topics of the post.

In regards to the Space Race and Arms Race; my understanding is in certain clearances channels there wasn't so much a race... more an issue with lack of disclosure of weapons systems implementations and capabilities validated.  Furthermore, fundamental ideologies caused issues in regards to social harmony and information sharing as well as validated operations that were proving lies, illegal activities and not very pro-life operations that were really dangerous and deadly for World leadership role models of the most advanced domesticated complex social systems ever observed on the planet. 

In regards to electronics devices... the U.S. was far more open typically even when the "walls have ears" propaganda and culture periods.  Scientists and engineers defected when they could to the U.S. for a reason in many cases.  During certain periods in history, some didn't want to for a reason... maybe they were stuck in the gulags or not that bad off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronika
http://balticworlds.com/design-of-electronicelectrical-systems-in-the-soviet-union-from-khrushchev%E2%80%99s-thaw-to-gorbachev%E2%80%99s-perestroika/
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000496308.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_the_Soviet_Union

I'll have to dig up references, though from my readings certain raw materials were chosen to be used to develop electronics components in the USSR and the US concurrently to develop a broader range of electronics components and I don't think as much the devices.  The issue more-so is the electronics industry in the U.S.S.R. was classified.  I'm not sure of their system of classification, however I want to say they were secret with their industry in general.  Many organizational systems were considered military versus civilian for approval of funding reasons I am thinking though forget exactly.

I've read before the U.S.S.R. electronics devices used thicker and more gold in particular though were scrapped for the material post the collapse throughout the U.S.S.R. member Republics.

Germanium, Tantalum and Niobium electronic components were developed more in the U.S.S.R. I read somewhere where the U.S. did also... though Tantalum was more there as well as the other materials.  Titanium was also, though more needed by the U.S. for aircraft production, e.g. the A-12 & Sr-71.  Seems they developed more vacuum sealed capacitors and variable capacitors also as well as developed ferrite for use in electronics components too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksander_Burba (this link noted germanium production was secret)
https://hackaday.com/2015/12/08/theremins-bug/ (goes into developments pre-WWII and with Nazi POWs)

If I understand correctly, we loaned the U.S.S.R. vehicles, aircraft and radio equipment during WWII. Though in regards to aircraft they seemed to have somewhat advanced ahead of the U.S. more secretly in a few instances to show case their accomplishments. However, the ego or attitude or something I don't understand dynamic didn't help mass production. https://ww2-weapons.com/lend-lease-tanks-and-aircrafts/  and   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#US_deliveries_to_the_Soviet_Union

Interestingly the radio equipment isn't documented well in my quick look for references.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_hardware_in_Soviet_Bloc_countries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_the_Soviet_Union

Interestingly "trinary" or "ternary" logic was studied in the U.S.S.R. where say the U.S. focused on "binary" logic hardware and software.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun

Here is a list you can parse through to find more Russian related inventions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Russian_innovation

[daqq]

I've read before the U.S.S.R. electronics devices used thicker and more gold in particular though were scrapped for the material post the collapse throughout the U.S.S.R. member Republics.

Germanium, Tantalum and Niobium electronic components were developed more in the U.S.S.R. I read somewhere where the U.S. did also... though Tantalum was more there as well as the other materials.

This is true to the best of my knowledge - scrap hunters today go nuts when you name a few specific types of connectors or capacitors, because the precious metal yield in recycling is so damn high. I once sent a link to a price list for buyout of various types of connectors... he nearly had kittens, seeing the type of connector he discarded a whole box of to be worth a lot...

[PrecisionAnalytic]

This is true to the best of my knowledge - scrap hunters today go nuts when you name a few specific types of connectors or capacitors, because the precious metal yield in recycling is so damn high.

Seems I watched an RT or other documentary that noted how some, if not all, of the government installations had the iron and steel stripped out to be salvaged by local "mafias" rather quick if not manned/stationed.  I recall an underground bunker in the Ukraine though still trying to find which documentary.  Youtube videos related to scrapping have noted similar in regards to gold and maybe other materials also.

[daqq]

Seems I watched an RT or other documentary that noted how some, if not all, of the government installations had the iron and steel stripped out to be salvaged by local "mafias" rather quick if not manned/stationed.

Not sure about the Soviet areas, the local junk thieves here are generally small groups of people or individuals from "disadvantaged minorities", not any kind of large organized groups. These fine people can strip down pretty much anything and do an amazing amount of damage for a few kg of scrap - this includes tearing out heating pipes, water pipes, cables, AC, and occasionally even rebar from structures, destroying infrastructure... they are generally different from electronics recyclers, but I'm sure there's some small overlap.

Funny: http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2008-08.html

[Richard Crowley]

As to the Russian electronics thing ... perhaps the biggest problem Russia had was that because they were so successful at espionage and saved a lot by not having to develop things themselves they didn't invest as much in research as a consequence.

Last week I saw a fascinating History Channel documentary on YouTube: "Stealing the Superfortress"

https://youtu.be/S7Wzs7GLqmk

Joseph Stalin ordered Andrei Tupolev to reverse-engineering the Boeing B29 "Superfortress" bomber (of which they had three craft that had emergency landed in Vladivostok).  105,000 parts; 40,000 detail drawings; 64 research institutes; 900 plants  Under war-time conditions, using slide-rules and abacus(!), and making many parts of wood because of a shortage of aluminum.  They did a rivet-for-rivet clone ("TU-4") in two years which was almost more remarkable than the original US development. 

Of course they were working under threat of death or being shipped off to a Siberian gulag. Lavrentiy Beria was the head of the secret police and overseer of the TU4 project and enforced "copy exactly" even down to the repair patches on the outer skin. And with all the original problems like engine overheating. They successfully copied the air-frame and engines, but were forced to buy the landing gear and especially the tires on the war-surplus market in the US  The Aviation Day parade in August 1947 shocked the American observers that the USSR had successfully cloned the B29

[CatalinaWOW]

I recall reading an article about this cloning in either Popular Science or Popular Mechanics in the late 1950s or early 1960s.  One of the interesting comments was that dimensions and shapes were easy to duplicate, but the alloys and heat treatments were much bigger challenges.   These were often detected by some sort of in flight problem.  And was one of the reasons the TU-4 didn't get produced in large quantities.

[schmitt trigger]

Back in track with the original thread; Soviet made electronic components. 

I am no expert on Soviet microelectronics. But............
What is apparent is that they kept using glass-state devices for a longer period of time. For that reason, several products achieved significant development, and continued to be mass produced long after the west decided to abandon them.

A fact that, for vintage component collectors like myself, is pure joy.
Thanks to this, there is still a decent supply of Soviet made tubes, Nixies, Dekatrons, Geiger tubes and other oddball devices.

[schmitt trigger]

And indeed, Lavrenty Beria wasn't the type of man that would take "it can't be done" for an answer.

[jmelson]

   You're absolutely dead wrong about that.  To take out a hardened missile silo (which is the goal of a first strike or a first retaliatory strike) you have to strike within 50 yards of the silo.

Yes, and to make sure the system remained that accurate, every 6 months a Minuteman missile is selected from the fleet.  It is pulled out of the silo, the warhead is removed and replaced with a data package, and it is trucked out to Vandenberg AFB in California, along with that missile's crew.  Then, they do the whole live fire test.  NORAD sends them a emergency action message, they decode it, open envelopes, enter codes that decrypt the launch software and load it to the missile, and then turn their keys to launch the missile at Kwajalein.  There, they have radars and hydrophones that locate the splash to <way above top secret> accuracy.

I have no idea if the Russians do this level of continued performance testing.

Jon

[Bud]

Seems I watched an RT or other documentary that noted how some, if not all, of the government installations had the iron and steel stripped out to be salvaged by local "mafias" rather quick if not manned/stationed.

Not sure about the Soviet areas, the local junk thieves here are generally small groups of people or individuals from "disadvantaged minorities", not any kind of large organized groups. These fine people can strip down pretty much anything and do an amazing amount of damage for a few kg of scrap - this includes tearing out heating pipes, water pipes, cables, AC, and occasionally even rebar from structures, destroying infrastructure... they are generally different from electronics recyclers, but I'm sure there's some small overlap.

Funny: http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2008-08.html

Yes yes tell them solar roadways are coming soon.

[PrecisionAnalytic]

Seems I watched an RT or other documentary that noted how some, if not all, of the government installations had the iron and steel stripped out to be salvaged by local "mafias" rather quick if not manned/stationed.

Not sure about the Soviet areas, the local junk thieves here are generally small groups of people or individuals from "disadvantaged minorities", not any kind of large organized groups. These fine people can strip down pretty much anything and do an amazing amount of damage for a few kg of scrap - this includes tearing out heating pipes, water pipes, cables, AC, and occasionally even rebar from structures, destroying infrastructure... they are generally different from electronics recyclers, but I'm sure there's some small overlap.

Funny: http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2008-08.html

Yes yes tell them solar roadways are coming soon.

Yes, that is true as I've heard even road work materials/equipment is lifted occasionally.   Farm irrigation materials, poisoning the youth with who knows what smuggled or produced from farm or COTS items then whatever the family and farm for the diocese or invalids mob cohorts, catalytic converters stolen and a few other issues also.   

Back to electronics, I recall specifically the documentary noted the mafia's knew of the gold and wanted that since was a higher dollar operation since was more known about in certain circles.

[duak]

I was told that Soviet industry rationalized the 0.1 inch component lead spacing to the nearest nice metric number of 2.5 mm instead of 2.54 mm.  OK for small pin counts but by 16, 24 & 40 pin DIPs the western parts would no longer fit in the circuit boards.  Could any one in the know confirm or refute this?

Oddly enough, I worked with both Russian and Czech engineers but never thought to ask.

[Canis Dirus Leidy]

I was told that Soviet industry rationalized the 0.1 inch component lead spacing to the nearest nice metric number of 2.5 mm instead of 2.54 mm.

It depends. GOST 17467 allowed use 0.05 and 0.1 inch spacing for exported chips.

P.S. And some advertising (from first soviet IC datasheet information booklet). A visual demonstration of the advantages of "solid circuits" (a box in a woman's hand) over traditional electromagnetic relays (rack cabinet on the left):

[schmitt trigger]

Was this GOST 17467 a standard similar to the JEDEC or JIS standards?

[Canis Dirus Leidy]

Was this GOST 17467 a standard similar to the JEDEC or JIS standards?

Yes, it was (repealed in 2013 and replaced by GOST R54844) a state standard for IC packages dimensions.

[Corporate666]

Soviet missile technology has been on par with the west since the 50's and by some measures are and were at least equal and perhaps ahead of the west. Making such things work requires real competence with electronics and more to the point, the ability to produce them. 

Is that really true?  I worked with a guy who was recruited from a high-level military intelligence position (so the company we were working for could help win military contracts).  He was always adamant that the biggest failure of the intelligence community from the 50's through the 80's was their total failure to realize how far behind the USSR was.  He had many reasons why that failure happened that are outside the scope of the question asked, but there was most certainly a perception that permeated western society that the Russians were *really* dangerous, when their technology was in-fact far, far behind where were assumed.  It wasn't due to lack of engineering brilliance.  If anything, engineering brilliance is what allowed then to be as close as they were with the shit resources they had, but there are just some gaps that no amount of guile can overcome.

And the illusion held up because the Soviets weren't really tested.  The only conflicts they were really involved in was the Polish uprising and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, neither of which tested their military hardware.  The USA really made huge strides in technological advancement after Vietnam, and then came the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan - that was a real eye-opener for the intelligence community.  They were looking at each other thinking "can this really be happening?  How can the Soviets be performing so badly?".  But it didn't convince everyone the gap was real.  After the fall of the USSR, the true breadth of the technology gap started to become a bit clearer, and then the west went into Iraq.  Russia supported Saddam with weaponry and technology, and it was really the first test of modern eastern vs. western hardware - and that was really when the massive chasm became clear and the intelligence community realized they had been wrong all along, and the Soviets had always been many years behind from a technology standpoint.

They are even further behind today than they were then.

[bd139]

Interesting thread. I worked in the defence sector in the late 1990s and the state of the art technology that was used was still well proven 1980s grade stuff. It’s quite possible that Soviet bleeding edge tech was as good as tested stuff elsewhere.

I rather like Eastern Bloc tech. 2.5mm pitch instead of 2.54mm. They had the right idea

I was surprised to see that I think Robotron was producing clone mainframes as well.

[raptor1956]

Soviet missile technology has been on par with the west since the 50's and by some measures are and were at least equal and perhaps ahead of the west. Making such things work requires real competence with electronics and more to the point, the ability to produce them. 

Is that really true?  I worked with a guy who was recruited from a high-level military intelligence position (so the company we were working for could help win military contracts).  He was always adamant that the biggest failure of the intelligence community from the 50's through the 80's was their total failure to realize how far behind the USSR was.  He had many reasons why that failure happened that are outside the scope of the question asked, but there was most certainly a perception that permeated western society that the Russians were *really* dangerous, when their technology was in-fact far, far behind where were assumed.  It wasn't due to lack of engineering brilliance.  If anything, engineering brilliance is what allowed then to be as close as they were with the shit resources they had, but there are just some gaps that no amount of guile can overcome.

And the illusion held up because the Soviets weren't really tested.  The only conflicts they were really involved in was the Polish uprising and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, neither of which tested their military hardware.  The USA really made huge strides in technological advancement after Vietnam, and then came the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan - that was a real eye-opener for the intelligence community.  They were looking at each other thinking "can this really be happening?  How can the Soviets be performing so badly?".  But it didn't convince everyone the gap was real.  After the fall of the USSR, the true breadth of the technology gap started to become a bit clearer, and then the west went into Iraq.  Russia supported Saddam with weaponry and technology, and it was really the first test of modern eastern vs. western hardware - and that was really when the massive chasm became clear and the intelligence community realized they had been wrong all along, and the Soviets had always been many years behind from a technology standpoint.

They are even further behind today than they were then.

Soviet missile systems have without a doubt been leading edge stuff and that goes back to the 50's.  We over-estimated them in some respects but that was as much because our military industrial complex wanted us to buy more of there stuff so they promoted the idea we were lagging behind them.

The failure of the USSR to walk all over Afghanistan may appear to show the then Soviets were less than we thought, but the vaunted US has done what in Afghanistan in twice as long?  How well did we fare against Viet Nam?

If I take you logic then one might surmise the US is a military backwater because of the abject failure in Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Just how well did the US intelligence agencies do with WMD in Iraq prior to the 2nd Iraq war?

But, getting back to the competence of the USSR in military electronics the fact remains that in spite of there limitations and borrowing of this-that-and-the-other, they managed to build many weapons systems that were and are the equal of the west's best.  There approach has always been different and in many ways that harms them, but in some ways it helps them.  They were never able to compete rubble for dollar but they made the most of there more limited capabilities.


Brian