Russian companies tried to purchase Chinese-made Zhaoxin x86 processors to replace Intel and AMD

At present, Russia has been sanctioned by the European Union and the United States in various aspects. As a result, the supply of many key network facilities in Russia has become a big problem. For example, after cloud computing companies withdrew from the Russian market and no longer allowed Russian companies and governments to use them, Russia faced a serious shortage of local storage space.

Image: Zhaoxin

After being sanctioned, AMD, Intel, IBM, and other semiconductor manufacturers have all withdrawn from the Russian market and will no longer continue to supply Russia. Although parallel imports can also purchase some processors, the number is far from enough to even meet the Russian government’s demand for processor products for key systems.

So now there are Russian companies announcing to offer product packages with processors made by Chinese manufacturers, specifically the Chinese Zhaoxin x86 processors. This Russian company produces its own motherboard and peripheral accessories, and its MBX-Z60A motherboard equipped with Zhaoxin KX-6640MA can basically meet the compatibility requirements. The KX-6640MA is an x86 processor launched by Zhaoxin in 2020, with a main clock of 2.7GHz and an integrated GPU, PCIe 3.0 x 16, and power consumption of only 25W. Although the overall performance is significantly weaker than the Intel Core series processors, it is basically no problem to use it for office work, so of course, it can be used.

Under the circumstance of Russia being sanctioned, Zhaoxin may also be implicated if it supplies Russia. These chips of Zhaoxin are produced based on TSMC’s 16nm process. If TSMC is implicated, they will no longer be able to manufacture Zhaoxin processors for Zhaoxin.

A representative from Zhaoxin has confirmed to Tom’s Hardware that the company only focuses on business in China. Zhaoxin has no intention thus far to sell its products to other countries. Zhaoxin has also sent out announcements to its partners to emphasize the company’s policy and to ensure that they understand Zhaoxin’s policy.

Via: tomshardware