The data shows Russia’s chip market amid Ukraine’s sanctions

Russia’s sanctions are killing the chip industry

The impact of global sanctions that have stifled Russia’s access to semiconductors has been widely ignored by the industry. In some ways, that’s correct: Out of the overall global chip market of approximately $ 550 billion, Russia consumes about 0.1%, or about $ 500 million worth of semiconductors a year.

But even if the $ 500 million worth of semiconductor is… many chips, especially the cheap ones used in products such as cars and household goods. Amid a severe chip shortage that has lasted for years, a power outage in a major Taiwanese manufacturing district that takes only one-tenth of a second Tuesday was enough to trigger concern about production. .

The Protocol reviewed 146,000 Russian customs records from 2017 to July of 2021 for both memory and processors provided by ImportGenius.

• Most of the raw chips that Russia imports are not as well known as microprocessors and graphic chips made by the likes of Intel and Nvidia.
• According to the data, Russia imported nearly $ 40 million worth of loose chips in the first half of 2021, suggesting that it closely matched annual imports of more than $ 60 million in the years before the pandemic.
• This review does not include most of the components included within finished products such as smartphones or computers, but examines the shipping records associated with imports of chips such as memory and analog components. used in doing other things.

• Harvard Business School professor Willy Shih told Protocol that a large portion of the imported chips are analog semiconductors used in industrial equipment and things like switches and motor controls.
• Infineon, a Germany-based analog chipmaker, exports the largest dollar amount of loose chips to Russia, according to the data.
• The company reported total revenue in fiscal 2021 of € 11.1 billion ($ 12.4 billion), suggesting even its total exports to Russia since 2017-approximately $ 60 million-are a small concern.
• Like others on the list, Infineon products include a range of power management chips and other types of sensors.

• Memory is treated as a commodity, similar to oil, complete with daily prices for flash storage and DRAM (dynamic random access memory).
• Russia imported approximately $ 50 million worth of memory chips in the first seven months of 2021, which is likely to set it at pace for 2019 imports of approximately $ 75 million.
• As it did with other chips, the pandemic was severely damaged by memory imports in 2020, the data appears to indicate.

• Bernstein’s research indicates that more than 80% of the combined flash storage and DRAM market is controlled by three companies: South Korean giant SK Hynix – which recently bought Intel’s flash storage unit – and Samsung, and Micron -based in Idaho.
• According to ImportGenius data, Samsung has the most exposure in Russia, and sells approximately $ 15 million worth of memory a year, apart from 2020.

For countries outside Russia, sanctions could help alleviate the deficit – even just a little. “Right now the impact will be positive on silicon buyers outside Russia, in the sense that almost all semiconductor products are currently restricted in supply, and if fewer products are shipped to Russia allowing them to be allocated to others, ”Dean of Mercury Research McCarron told the Protocol.

– Max A. Cherney (email | kaba)

A MESSAGE FROM HASHICORP

At HashiCorp, we believe that infrastructure enables change. We help teams run that infrastructure in the cloud. Organizations rely on our solutions to provision, secure, connect, and run their business -critical applications. Our products provide multi-cloud infrastructure automation, and strengthen some of the most important applications for the world’s largest businesses.

Learn more

The conflict in Ukraine puts an Ohio manufacturer – and its data – on alert

When Jeff Karan received a “Shields Up” warning email from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency last week, the director of Enterprise Technologies at G&W Products in Fairfield, Ohio, was well prepared for potential cyberattacks . But the email to the military contractor showed how a war in Ukraine would feel even within a small business 5,000 miles away.

The CISA alert on February 22 was prompted by expectations of disruptive cyber activity in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and its allies in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

G&W’s manufacturing equipment and devices are internally networked and also connected to the internet. It uses cloud-based enterprise resource planning software from Plex Systems to manage and evaluate HR, accounting, materials inventory and more.

Although the connections between that platform and its partners are encrypted, Cathy Pitt, chief security officer at Plex Systems, said that government contractors, particularly defense contractors, are should not have confidential data stored within their analytics platforms.

Even wrong steps within a small manufacturer like G&W can affect many connected companies and systems, says Michael Sentonas, CTO of global cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.

“They have suppliers, they connect to other systems. It spreads from their partners in line,” he said.

– Kate Kaye (email | kaba)

Business moves

In the past week, both Splunk and the Open Compute Foundation appointed new CEOs, Zoom set its workflow strategy on a board appointment, and long-time industry executives from Intel, Microsoft and Signal Sciences.

Gary Steele is the new CEO of Splunk. Steele has held leadership roles at Sybase, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard.

Rebecca Weekly is the new VP of Hardware Systems at Cloudflare. Weekly is a former VP at Intel and board member at the Open Compute Project.

George Tchaparian is the new CEO of the Open Compute Project. Tchaparian was formerly CEO of Edgecore Networks Corporation and held management roles at HP.

Bobby Yerramilli-Rao joins the GlobalFoundries board of directors. Yerramilli-Rao is currently chief strategy officer for Microsoft.

ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott joins Zoom’s board of directors. Last week, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said he views the move as an opportunity to learn more about workflow integration from ServiceNow.

Zane Lackey is already an enterprise investor in a16Z, left his role as co-founder and chief security officer of Signal Sciences.

Rupal Hollenbeck joined Check Point as chief commercial officer. Hollenbeck previously held marketing roles at Cerebras Systems, Oracle and Intel.

– Aisha counts (email | kaba)

A MESSAGE FROM HASHICORP

At HashiCorp, we believe that infrastructure enables change. We help teams run that infrastructure in the cloud. Organizations rely on our solutions to provision, secure, connect, and run their business -critical applications. Our products provide multi-cloud infrastructure automation, and strengthen some of the most important applications for the world’s largest businesses.

Learn more