The photolithography tool, capable of producing chips with a 350 nm process technology or thicker, has been built in Russia and is undergoing testing in Zelenograd. This tech is so mature that Keith Richards used it to make the first chips for Noah’s ark.

To be fair it is used for some automotive and power chips, though it could be used for military equipment too but seriously it is  30 years behind the industry.

Intel made its Pentium MMX, Pentium Pro, and initial Pentium II processors on this node in 1995 and 1997, respectively, whereas AMD used this node for its K6 processor in 1997.

Still, no one told that Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of Russia, Vasily Shpak, who was pleased that the Empire could now assemble and make a lithographic scanner.

There might be a reason no one told him. Even for Russia, a 350nm fabrication process may be considered outdated as two of the country's contract makers of chips — Angstrem and Mikron — will not touch it. Angstrem has a variety of technologies ranging from 250nm to 90nm, whereas Micron has processes ranging from 250nm to 90nm.

It is unclear how the Russian lithography tool can be commercially used. Still, we can guess that its main goal is to serve as a development vehicle for more sophisticated lithography machines.

Russia's semiconductor sector is developing much slower than the country's government announced in 2023. Previously stated short-term objectives include ramping up local chip production using 90nm technology by the end of the year, with a long-term goal of establishing 28nm manufacturing by 2027 and then 14nm node by 2030. This is about as likely as the conservatives winning the next British election.

There is another issue. Russia cannot develop sophisticated chips due to a lack of local talent and the latest electronic design automation tools. It does not have domestic raw materials to make chips using modern technologies. Furthermore, Russian entities can no longer license advanced CPU cores or chip IP, so they cannot even buy in the technologies they need to build advanced processors.