'Silicon Lifeline: Western Electronics at the Heart of Russia's War Machine'
Of the 450 components found by RUSI in Russian military systems, 318 appear to have been made by US companies. Components from Japan, Taiwan, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, China, South Korea, the UK, Austria and others were also present in the equipment examined by the research team.
Products bearing the logo of Dallas-based microelectronics producer Texas Instruments were the most numerous among the US-made components reviewed by RUSI. In total, 51 unique Texas Instruments components appeared in the Russian military systems and equipment examined by the research team
Components apparently produced by Texas Instruments were discovered in the KUB-BLA ‘kamikaze’ UAV, an E95M target drone, an Orlan-10 UAV, and a number of radio sets used by the Russian Army. And they were found in the 9M727 Iskander as well.
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/silicon-lifeline-western-electronics-heart-russias-war-machine
The onboard computer system inside the cruise missile’s black metal box shows that Russia doesn’t just rely on state-of-the-art technology for its precision weaponry. For example, stamps on two of the Texas Instruments chips – which process digital signals – showed they were manufactured more than 30 years ago.
“For the most part, it’s the same chips that you find in your car or your microwave,” said a Ukrainian weapons expert with access to recovered Russian military gear.
Gehan Amaratunga, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Cambridge, reviewed a list of more than 600 Western components compiled by RUSI and Reuters that were found in Russian weapons and military systems recovered in Ukraine. “They are mostly standard products which are dated and can be found in many industrial electronic systems,” he said. “As such, they are not specialist military specification products.”
Still, he added, “it is the reality that all standard integrated circuits can be used for both civilian and military purposes.”