Russia Allocates 2 Billion Rubles for Chip Manufacturing Equipment Substitution Projects

The Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade has launched two major projects aimed at import substitution of epitaxy equipment. This technology is designed for growing layers based on silicon, silicon-germanium, as well as indium, aluminum, and gallium compounds. According to CNews, the new developments are intended to replace equipment from US-based Veeco, France's Riber, and the Netherlands' ASM, whose supplies to Russia have been blocked. Ixbt.com reports on this. reports .

463.7 million rubles have been allocated to the 'Epitaxy-SiGe' project. It involves creating a device for growing silicon-germanium layers on 200 mm diameter silicon wafers using gas-phase epitaxy. This system will be an analog of the ASM Epsilon 2000 from the Netherlands. According to the technical specifications, the contractor must develop a reactor, a robot loader, and a wafer surface cleaning module. Work is scheduled to be completed by June 2029.

The second project, named 'Citadel', received 1.5 billion rubles. This project envisions the development of a molecular beam epitaxy system for producing heterostructures based on indium, aluminum, gallium, and arsenide compounds. This system is expected to replace France's Riber 49 and the US Veeco GEN200 equipment. Completion of this project is planned for October 2030.

Both projects strictly require the use of components manufactured in Russia. Critical nodes such as vacuum chambers, pumps, molecular sources, controllers, and software must be domestically produced. The use of foreign parts is permitted only in exceptional cases and with the ministry's approval.