Processor manufacturers such as Intel and AMD left the Russian market a few months ago in retaliation for the war waged by Moscow against Ukraine, a conflict that has lasted since February 2022. With this commercial change, companies were unable to use components from companies headquartered in the United States.

Despite the departure, the Russian hardware segment was not short of processors thanks to local manufacturers, companies that use TSMC’s production technology. However, the Taiwanese multinational also suspended the export of chips to the Putin government, making it impossible for Russian factories to replace parts.

According to information from the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, computer manufacturers produced only 15,000 units with proprietary processors, a number reduced to 8,000 based on Elbrus and Baikal processors, Russian companies that held back Intel and AMD from the country.

“We’d have a lot more [PCs e servidores baseados em CPUs russas] this year if these batches of Russian processors, Elbrus, Baikals, which were ordered and produced, were shipped,” said Maksut Shadayev, head of the ministry. This statement indicates that Taiwan’s sanctions are directly hurting processor shipments in Russia.

As Shadayev explains, all the intellectual property of the components belongs to Russia, but local manufacturers do not have the necessary technology to produce the chips, having to resort to manufacturing elsewhere. In the case of Russian manufacturers, the manufacturing process is limited to 90 nm, while TSMC works with 16 nm.

New legislation imposed by Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) prevents processors operating at a frequency higher than 25 MHz from being exported to Russia.