Soviet’s First Planar Integrated Circuits

“Copy It”

“Around the same time that Nikita Khrushchev declared his support for building Zelenograd. A Soviet student named Boris Malin returned from a year studying in Pennsylvania with a small device in his luggage – a Texas Instruments SN-51, one first integrated circuits sold in the United States. A thin man with dark hair and deep-set eyes, Malin was one of the Soviet Union leading experts on semiconductor devices. He saw himself as a scientist, not a spy. Yet Alexander Shokin, the bureaucrat in charge of Soviet microelectronics, believed the SN-51 was a device the Soviet Union must acquire by any means necessary. Shokin called Malin and a group of other engineers into his office, placed the chip under his microscope, and peered through the lens. «Copy it», he ordered them, «one-for-one», without any deviations. I’ll give you three months.“

Chris Miller
Chip War: The Fight for World’s Most Critical Technology. Chapter 8

In 1961, Fairchild Semiconductor patented integrated circuit fabrication technology that revolutionized the electronics industry. The central idea of this technology, called planar (in mathematics, “planarity” means a geometric image that can be drawn on a plane without intersecting lines) is that the design of an integrated circuit is initially represented as a set of drawings. These patterns are then sequentially “translated” onto a semiconductor material crystal using various physical and chemical processes (photolithography etc).

Early TI Photolithography process. Duplicated and enhanced by the Soviet Engineeris.

The main advantage of planar technology, which caused its spread in semiconductor electronics, is the possibility of using it as a method of mass manufacture of semiconductor devices and allows you to reduce the spread of their parameters, keeping specs consistent from one device to another.

Early TI Assembly Process

In October 1961, Texas Instruments announced the creation of RCTL (Resistor Capacitor Transistor Logic) SN51X logical planar integrated circuits, and in 1962 began mass production of them. The SN51xz line was an enhanced version of the previous (released earlier that year) SN50x line.  The SN51x  provided more power (for fanout) and speed, about 10x faster. TI was the first to release six SN510-SN515 chips. Early SN51X series chips sold for over $400 when first released (in 1961 dollars, today, around $4100).

TI SN502

It was these six chips that became the object of copying. Formed at the Scientific Research Institute (NII-35, later “Pulsar”), Dept 5 under the leadership of Boris Malin was engaged in the creation of Soviet planar technology. It is one thing to study and iterate on an architecture and quite another to understand the technology for manufacturing an integrated circuit without sacrificing quality or reliability. An analysis of the implementation of the planar technology cycle (over 300 technological operations) showed that everything had to be mastered from scratch. A team of 250 people worked to solve this problem, including employees of the department and an experimental workshop specially created at the department.

TI SN5xx Sample as would have been brought to the Soviet Union

The concepts of repeating and copying American technological experience were in effect-the methods of so-called “reverse engineering”. Copying was carried out after depressurizing and removing the cover from the sample, copying the planar pattern of transistors and resistors in the circuit, as well as examining the structure of functional areas under microscope. The copying results were produced in the form of working drawings and technological documentation.

The main attention in the development of planar technology was paid to the production development of industrial lithography techniques with high optical resolution. An important role was also played by the developments of the department for the automation of planar technology and the design of special technological equipment. Automated units for operational processing of silicon wafers (washing, photoresist application, conveyor oxidation, etc.) based on the use of pneumatic automation were developed.  Essentially taking one small finished product (the chip) and not just reverse engineering it, but the ENTIRE process of making it.  The goal wasn’t to just make another SN51x chip, that was really easy, the goal was “build a factory to make these,” a goal several orders of magnitude more difficult.

The organization of pilot production took three years (1962-1965) at NII-35. In 1967, preparations for the production of microcircuits began at the Experimental Demonstration Plant of Special-Purpose Semiconductor Devices in the city of Fryazino near Moscow. However, the production of microcircuits really began only in 1969.

Prototypes of the 110 series chips were called ИС110-ИС160. The first column (110 series).

Serial products already had a different name. 1TK10X, 1ЛБ10X and 1ИЛ101. Second column.

In the mid-seventies, the marking of microcircuits produced in the Soviet Union changed. Since that time, three digits of the series began to be placed in front of the marking, and then letters and numbers indicating the functionality of the chip. Third column.

ИС160А1

The earliest 110 series chips had a rectangular glass case with ten pins. Later, they began to be produced in cases with 14 pins.

Sometime after the release of the first six chips, TI expanded the range of the SN51 series. Ten more chips were produced, but only three of them had analogues in the 110 series.

ИС142А1.

Initially, the chips were produced with the indices A1, A2, B1 and B2, later becoming А, Б, В and Г. The first two (A and Б) meant the operating temperature range of -60 +70 °C. В and Г -10 +50 °C. Microcircuits with the letters А and В had a higher load capacity compared to Б and Г.

The 110 series also contained microcircuits that had no analogues in the SN51 series.

Some Examples:

SN501	SN501	Dual NAND/NOR	4-Input NAND/NOR

Chips were produced through 1991, although already in 1970 the production of TTL microcircuits, which were much more useful, was mastered at several factories in the USSR. Perhaps they would have continued to be produced, but “Perestroika” and the collapse of the Soviet Union brought the plant in Fryazino to the brink of bankruptcy.

110ИЛ1А.

110 series microcircuits, produced in the eighties and early nineties, are still present in the price lists of companies in the Russian Federation selling electronic components. Strange, but their price is no less than $3-$6. Unlike the earlier ones, these have no collectible value, and it is unclear where to use a chip developed sixty years ago for its intended purpose.

Photos of chips given in the article are from the author’s (Vlad)  collection and CPU Shack archives (TI Examples).