Sanctions Calling: The Dire Prospects for Russia's Chips Industry

Abstract

Integrated circuits, or semiconductors, are dual-use technologies that have a wide variety of applications,from smartphones to missile systems. Successive global crises - Sino-U.S. competition, the Covid pandemic,the war in Ukraine - have highlighted their strategic nature. When it comes to Russia, the country's alreadyfragile position when it comes to hardware has been intensifying due to international sanctions that particularlytarget the national semiconductor industry. Technological sovereignty through "indigenization" ofthe semiconductor industry seems highly unlikely, and the defense sector - as an avid consumer of chips - will particularly suffer from sanctions.