Question of the Day: are washing machine chips suitable for military equipment production?

Novye Izvestia learned from experts whether it is possible to find something useful in household appliances?

Alexander Dybin

In particular, Bloomberg drew attention to the growth in purchases of household appliances in the European Union by the countries of the former USSR. According to the agency, then the equipment goes through gray imports to Russia, and there refrigerators and even breast pumps are dismantled to remove chips and other electronic components. After all, these elements are not directly supplied to Russia from unfriendly countries, but they are needed, including in the production of military equipment.

Experts interviewed by Novye Izvestia dismissed this theory as "nonsense". Stanislav Tverdokhleb, head of the Passport industrial innovation park, notes that there is a real base under the news about the unsoldering of breast pumps for the production of rockets. In Russia, indeed, there is a gray import of household appliances associated with sanctions.

“Not all equipment was supplied to Russia from China, many factories in Poland, there was equipment from Italy,” the expert says, “Europe stopped supplying these goods due to sanctions, but they went through parallel imports through Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. Therefore, the statistics that these countries have begun to buy more is real, but the conclusion that this is all being sold is false. Firstly, no household appliances will be enough to saturate our instrumentation with chips and other elements. Secondly, it is technically difficult and pointless. It is necessary to arrange supplies, organize disassembly, understand if there is something suitable there, after desoldering, check these elements to see if they are out of order due to overheating. What will be the amount of marriage and costs? It's just bullshit".

I agree with this opinion and the founder and development director of the inSmart Group of Companies Aleksey Uskov, which produces smart home automation systems and also develops and manufactures various electronic products.

“The topic of extracting chips from household appliances is more like a fake,” the expert says, “we have no problems with the supply of components. Yes, logistics has become more complicated, but it is not difficult to buy components for standard electronics, including industrial work. I doubt that anything suitable for military use can be found in household appliances, since additional requirements are imposed on the elements, in addition to performing their function, they must have, for example, radiation resistance, etc. In theory, it can be assumed that household quadrocopters can, for example, have navigation systems, stabilization systems, compasses, accelerometers, etc. but in washing machines and vacuum cleaners, there is nothing close to that. Yes, and elements from quadrocopters will not work, because there is a difference between spare parts for a toy and a military product. The military needs a higher class of components”.

Where do chips come from in Russian technology?

If the story about the supply of household appliances for dismantling is not true, then where do Russian enterprises get chips and other components from? According to experts - from the same place where they received it before, from China.

“In any case, China is a global factory, they produce elements for the US market and the whole world,” says Alexey Uskov from inSmart, “we purchased some elements in countries that refused to supply this year, but we found the source, the factory -manufacturer in China and contracted directly. Without an intermediary, it turned out cheaper and the difference in more expensive logistics was leveled. In fact, nothing is lost. So did many colleagues. The movement towards the production of their chips in Russia has been going on for more than a year. But it is more focused on the military-industrial complex, and there, as I said, there are more stringent requirements. For us, these “functions” are redundant and there is no point in paying for them yet”.

The head of the Propus park, Stanislav Tverdokhleb, noted that there have been no problems with supplies for several months now, enterprises have long adapted to the sanctions, although in the first months there were difficulties with settlements in dollars with Chinese suppliers. But intermediaries from Kazakhstan or Turkey have joined the chains.

“It is clear that if there are stable supplies, no one thinks what can replace them, what other options are there,” says the interlocutor of Novye Izvestia, “but when problems arise and the necessary component is no longer there, creative work begins, which is associated with a crisis. But so far, not a single plant has closed because it did not find components”.

Earlier, Novye Izvestiya talked about the replacement of Cisco systems, which decided to leave the Russian market. Government agencies and banks actively used server and communication equipment. Industry experts noted that Cisco was an expensive but convenient all-inclusive system, while there are several companies in Russia that supply similar equipment, and they have received a new niche in the market.