Stuff you are not allowed to own.

[HAL-42b]

The following are a few of the items that caught my eye in the WA List (Wasenaar Arrangement for export restriction and non proliferation) WA is like ITAR except even Russia (and 40 other countries) agree you shouldn't be allowed to own the following:

Presumably such items or close equivalents do exist:



1 - Analogue-to-Digital Converter (ADC) and Digital-to-Analogue Converter (DAC) integrated circuits, as follows:
    a. ADCs having any of the following:
        1. A resolution of 8 bit or more, but less than 10 bit, with an output rate greater than 1 billion words per second;
        2. A resolution of 10 bit or more, but less than 12 bit, with an output rate greater than 500 million words per second;
        3. A resolution of 12 bit or more, but less than 14 bit, with an output rate greater than 200 million words per second;
        4. A resolution of 14 bit or more, but less than 16 bit, with an output rate greater than 250 million words per second; or
        5. A resolution of 16 bit or more with an output rate greater than 65 million words per second;


2 - Digital-to-Analogue Converters (DAC) having any of the following:
    1. A resolution of 10 bit or more with an 'adjusted update rate of greater than 3,500 MSPS; or
    2. A resolution of 12 bit or more with an 'adjusted update rate of greater than 1,250 MSPS and having any of the following:
        a. A settling time less than 9 ns to 0.024% of full scale from a full scale step; or
        b. A 'Spurious Free Dynamic Range' (SFDR) greater than 68 dBc (carrier) when synthesizing a full scale analogue signal of 100 MHz or the highest full scale analogue signal frequency specified below 100 MHz;

3 - Field programmable logic devices (FPGA) having any of the following:
    a. A maximum number of single-ended digital input/outputs of greater than 700; or
    b. An 'aggregate one-way peak serial transceiver data rate' of 500 Gb/s or greater;

4 - Neural network integrated circuits;

5 - Custom integrated circuits for which the function is unknown, or the status of the equipment in which the integrated circuits will be used is unknown to the manufacturer, having any of the following:
    a. More than 1,500 terminals;
    b. A typical "basic gate propagation delay time" of less than 0.02 ns; or
    c. An operating frequency exceeding 3 GHz;

6 - Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) processors having a rated execution time for an N-point complex FFT of less than (N log 2 N)/20,480 ms,where N is the number of points;

7 - Direct Digital Synthesizer (DDS) integrated circuits having any of the following:
    a. A Digital-to-Analogue Converter (DAC) clock frequency of 3.5 GHz or more and a DAC resolution of 10 bit or more, but less than 12 bit; or
    b. A DAC clock frequency of 1.25 GHz or more and a DAC resolution of 12 bit or more;

8 - Travelling Wave Tubes operating at frequencies exceeding 31.8 GHz;
     - Tubes having a cathode heater element with a turn on time to rated RF power of less than 3 seconds;
     - Coupled cavity tubes, or derivatives thereof, with a "fractional bandwidth" of more than 7% or a peak power exceeding 2.5 kW;
      - Helix tubes, or derivatives thereof, having any of the following:
            a. An "instantaneous bandwidth" of more than one octave,and average power (expressed in kW) times frequency (expressed in GHz) of more than 0.5;
            b. An "instantaneous bandwidth" of one octave or less, and average power (expressed in kW) times frequency (expressed in GHz) of more than 1; or
           c. Being "space-qualified";

    - Crossed-field amplifier tubes with a gain of more than 17 dB;
    - Impregnated cathodes designed for electronic tubes producing a continuous emission current density at rated operating conditions exceeding 5 A/cm2;

9 - Microwave "Monolithic Integrated Circuits" and Discrete microwave transistors operating from 6GHz to 90GHz and delivering significant power.

10 - Oscillators or oscillator assemblies, specified to operate with a single sideband (SSB) phase noise, in Bc/Hz, less (better) than -(126 + 20log 10 F - 20log 10 f) anywhere within the range of 10 Hz ? F ? 10 kHz;

11 - "Frequency synthesizer" "electronic assemblies" having a "frequency switching time" as specified by any of the following:
    a. Less than 156 ps;
    b. Less than 100 ?s for any frequency change exceeding 1.6 GHz
within the synthesized frequency range exceeding 4.8 GHz but not exceeding 10.6 GHz;
    c. Less than 250 ?s for any frequency change exceeding 550 MHz within the synthesized frequency range exceeding 10.6 GHz but not exceeding 31.8 GHz;
    d. Less than 500 ?s for any frequency change exceeding 550 MHz within the synthesized frequency range exceeding 31.8 GHz but not exceeding 43.5 GHz;
    e. Less than 1 ms for any frequency change exceeding 550 MHz within the synthesized frequency range exceeding 43.5 GHz but not exceeding 56 GHz;
    f. Less than 1 ms for any frequency change exceeding 2.2 GHz within the synthesized frequency range exceeding 56 GHz but not exceeding 90 GHz; or
    g. Less than 1 ms within the synthesized frequency range exceeding 90 GHz

12 - Acoustic wave devices as follows and specially designed components therefor:
    1. Surface acoustic wave and surface skimming (shallow bulk) acoustic wave devices, having any of the following:
        a. A carrier frequency exceeding 6 GHz;
        b. A carrier frequency exceeding 1 GHz, but not exceeding 6 GHz and having any of the following:
            1. A 'frequency side-lobe rejection' exceeding 65 dB;
            2. A product of the maximum delay time and the bandwidth (time in ?s and bandwidth in MHz) of more than 100;
            3. A bandwidth greater than 250 MHz; or
            4. A dispersive delay of more than 10 ?s; or
        c. A carrier frequency of 1 GHz or less and having any of the following:
            1. A product of the maximum delay time and the bandwidth (time in ?s and bandwidth in MHz) of more than 100;
            2. A dispersive delay of more than 10 ?s; or
            3. A 'frequency side-lobe rejection' exceeding 65 dB and a bandwidth greater than 100 MHz;
   2. Bulk (volume) acoustic wave devices which permit the direct processing of signals at frequencies exceeding 6 GHz;
   3. Acoustic-optic "signal processing" devices employing interaction between acoustic waves (bulk wave or surface wave) and light waves which permit the direct processing of signals or images, including spectral analysis, correlation or convolution;

13 - Electronic devices and circuits containing components, manufactured from "superconductive" materials,

14 - High energy devices as follows:
    1. 'Cells' as follows:
        a. 'Primary cells' having an 'energy density' exceeding 550 Wh/kg at 20°C;
        b. 'Secondary cells' having an 'energy density' exceeding 350 Wh/kg at 20°C;

    High energy storage capacitors as follows:
        a. Capacitors with a repetition rate of less than 10 Hz (single shot capacitors) and having all of the following:
            1. A voltage rating equal to or more than 5 kV;
            2. An energy density equal to or more than 250 J/kg; and
            3. A total energy equal to or more than 25 kJ;
        b. Capacitors with a repetition rate of 10 Hz or more (repetition rated capacitors) and having all of the following:
            1. A voltage rating equal to or more than 5 kV;
            2. An energy density equal to or more than 50 J/kg;
            3. A total energy equal to or more than 100 J; and
            4. A charge/discharge cycle life equal to or more than 10,000;

15 - Rotary input type absolute position encoders having an "accuracy" equal to or less (better) than 1.0 second of arc;

16 - Digital data recorders having all of the following:
    a. A sustained 'continuous throughput' of more than 6.4 Gbit/s to disk or solid-state drive memory; and
    b. A processor that performs analysis of radio frequency signal data while it is being recorded;

[HAL-42b]

17 - Real-time oscilloscopes having a vertical root-mean-square (rms) noise voltage of less than 2% of full-scale at the vertical scale setting that provides the lowest noise value for any input 3dB bandwidth of 60 GHz or greater per channel;

18 - "Signal analysers" as follows:
    1. "Signal analysers" having a 3 dB resolution bandwidth (RBW) exceeding 10 MHz anywhere within the frequency range exceeding 31.8 GHz but not exceeding 37 GHz;
    2. "Signal analysers" having Displayed Average Noise Level (DANL) less (better) than –150 dBm/Hz anywhere within the frequency range
exceeding 43.5 GHz but not exceeding 90 GHz;
    3. "Signal analysers" having a frequency exceeding 90 GHz;
    4. "Signal analysers" having all of the following:
        a. "Real-time bandwidth" exceeding 170 MHz; and
        b. 100% probability of discovery with less than a 3 dB reduction from full amplitude due to gaps or windowing effects of signals having a duration of 15 ?s or less;

"Signal analysers" having a "frequency mask trigger" function with 100% probability of trigger (capture) for signals having a duration of 15 ?s or less;

19 - Signal generators having any of the following:
    1. Specified to generate pulse-modulated signals having all of the following, anywhere within the frequency range exceeding 31.8 GHz
but not exceeding 37 GHz:
        a. 'Pulse duration' of less than 25 ns; and
        b. On/off ratio equal to or exceeding 65 dB;
    2. An output power exceeding 100 mW (20 dBm) anywhere within the frequency range exceeding 43.5 GHz but not exceeding 90 GHz;
    3. A "frequency switching time" as specified by any of the following:
        b. Less than 100 ?s for any frequency change exceeding 2.2 GHz within the frequency range exceeding 4.8 GHz but not exceeding 31.8 GHz;
        d. Less than 500 ?s for any frequency change exceeding 550 MHz within the frequency range exceeding 31.8 GHz but not exceeding 37 GHz; orLess than 100 ?s for any frequency change exceeding 2.2 GHz within the frequency range exceeding 37 GHz but not exceeding 90 GHz;

Single sideband (SSB) phase noise, in dBc/Hz, specified as being anyof the following:
    a. Less (better) than -(126+20 log 10 F-20 log 10 f) anywhere within the range of 10 Hz ? F ?10 kHz anywhere within the frequency
range exceeding 3.2 GHz but not exceeding 90 GHz; or
    b. Less (better) than -(206 - 20log 10 f) anywhere within the range of 10 kHz < F ? 100 kHz anywhere within the frequency range exceeding 3.2 GHz but not exceeding 90 GHz; or

    A maximum frequency exceeding 90 GHz;

20 - Network analysers having any of the following:
    1. An output power exceeding 31.62 mW (15 dBm) anywhere within the operating frequency range exceeding 43.5 GHz but not exceeding
90 GHz;
    2. An output power exceeding 1 mW (0 dBm) anywhere within the operating frequency range exceeding 90 GHz but not exceeding 110 GHz;
   3. 'Nonlinear vector measurement functionality' at frequencies exceeding 50 GHz but not exceeding 110 GHz; or
   4. A maximum operating frequency exceeding 110 GHz;

21 - Microwave test receivers having all of the following:
   1. A maximum operating frequency exceeding 110 GHz; and
    2. Being capable of measuring amplitude and phase simultaneously;

22 - Atomic frequency standards being any of the following:
     1. "Space-qualified";
     2. Non-rubidium and having a long-term stability less (better) than 1 x 10 -11 /month; or
     3. Non-"space-qualified" and having all of the following:
        a. Being a rubidium standard;
        b. Long-term stability less (better) than 1 x 10 -11 /month; and
        c. Total power consumption of less than 1 Watt;

23 - "Electronic assemblies", modules or equipment, specified to perform all of the following:
    1. Analogue-to-digital conversions meeting any of the following:
        a. A resolution of 8 bit or more, but less than 10 bit, with an input sample rate greater than 1.3 billion samples per second;
        b. A resolution of 10 bit or more, but less than 12 bit, with an input sample rate greater than 1.0 billion samples per second;
        c. A resolution of 12 bit or more, but less than 14 bit, with an input sample rate greater than 1.0 billion samples per second;
        d. A resolution of 14 bit or more but less than 16 bit, with an input sample rate greater than 400 million samples per second; or
        e. A resolution of 16 bit or more with an input sample rate greater than 180 million samples per second; and
    2. Any of the following:
        a. Output of digitized data;
        b. Storage of digitized data; or
        c. Processing of digitized data;

24- Spray cooling thermal management systems employing closed loop fluid handling and reconditioning equipment in a sealed enclosure where a dielectric fluid is sprayed onto electronic components using specially designed spray nozzles that are designed to maintain electronic components within their operating temperature range, and specially designed components therefor.

25 - Equipment designed for ion implantation and having any of the following:
       2. Being designed and optimized to operate at a beam energy of 20 keV or more and a beam current of 10 mA or more for hydrogen, deuterium or helium implant;
    3. Direct write capability;
    4. A beam energy of 65 keV or more and a beam current of 45 mA or more for high energy oxygen implant into a heated semiconductor
material "substrate"; or
    5. Being designed and optimized to operate at a beam energy of 20 keV or more and a beam current of 10 mA or more for silicon implant into a semiconductor material "substrate" heated to 600°C or greater;

26 - Automatic loading multi-chamber central wafer handling systems having all of the following:
    1. Interfaces for wafer input and output, to which more than two functionally different 'semiconductor process tools' specified by
    3.B.1.a.1., 3.B.1.a.2., 3.B.1.a.3. or 3.B.1.b. are designed to be connected; and
    2. Designed to form an integrated system in a vacuum environment for 'sequential multiple wafer rocessing';

27 - Lithography equipment as follows:
    1. Align and expose step and repeat (direct step on wafer) or step and scan (scanner) equipment for wafer processing using photo-optical or X-ray methods and having any of the following:
        a. A light source wavelength shorter than 193 nm; or
        b. Capable of producing a pattern with a 'Minimum Resolvable Feature size' (MRF) of 45 nm or less;

28 - Imprint lithography equipment capable of producing features of 45 nm or less;

29 - Equipment specially designed for mask making having all of the following:
    a. A deflected focused electron beam, ion beam or "laser" beam; and
    b. Having any of the following:
        1. A full-width half-maximum (FWHM) spot size smaller than 65 nm and an image placement less than 17 nm (mean + 3 sigma); or
        3. A second-layer overlay error of less than 23 nm (mean + 3sigma) on the mask;

30 - Equipment designed for device processing using direct writing methods, having all of the following:
    a. A deflected focused electron beam; and
    b. Having any of the following:
        1. A minimum beam size equal to or smaller than 15 nm; or
        2. An overlay error less than 27 nm (mean + 3 sigma);

31 - Multi-layer masks with a phase shift layer having any of the following:
    1. Made on a mask "substrate blank" from glass specified as having less than 7 nm/cm birefringence; or
    2. Designed to be used by lithography equipment having a light source wavelength less than 245 nm;

32 - "Systolic array computers"; "Neural computers";  "Optical computers".

[HAL-42b]

Some of the stuff is quite mundane, like 15 - 1 MOA Rotary Encoders.

Others are like alien technology or things I've never heard of.

Thought it would be interesting. Sorry for the wall of text.

[Richard Crowley]

Thanks. That helps (partially) understand some of the "import/export" restrictions not only on hardware, but software and even information that some of us have to deal with.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Surely it's stuff you're not allowed to export without a license, not prohibited from owning.

[Richard Crowley]

Surely it's stuff you're not allowed to export without a license, not prohibited from owning.

Well, depending on who you are.  There's a difference between having this stuff in your basement shop and playing with it vs. "authorized" use in research, business, industry, military, etc.  And even if you did come to find it in the shop, you would probably get a take-down request from some shadowy governmental entity if you posted one of your great tear-down videos of a banned piece of gear.   

You guys have that over-arching "Official Secrets Act" that lets them shut down whatever they declare "secret".  Probably no worse than anywhere else except that yours is visible and explicit.

[HAL-42b]

Surely it's stuff you're not allowed to export without a license, not prohibited from owning.

If you can make it yourself, sure. I don't think you would be able to buy any of these over the counter.

For example the reason Intel is not pushing much beyond 3GHz and 1500 pins could be  #5. Even if they produced it they know they couldn't export it so the sales would be low. They have a 4GHz chip but it is only 1150 pins.

[timb]

I have concluded that all of the listed items are the key to building an artificial human (an android) like Data from Star Trek. Think about it... Fast processors, neural networks, tons of IO... Everything you need to build a synthetic sentient being.

They're either trying to stop the robot apocalypse *or* they're (the 1%) building a robot army to enslave mankind. Think about it.

[T3sl4co1l]

It's funny to think that something as pedestrian as an HP8590A would've been a huge state secret in 1945, but such was the state of commercial and military technology, the amount of SIGINT you could perform with such an instrument would be devastating to most adversaries.

It's the same today, but with higher bandwidths and far more complex encoding (indeed, encrypting) schemes.  Hence most of the stuff on the list, such as ADCs/DACs and the DSPs to drive them.

The neural networks part is peculiar.  Now I want to know what counts as one; is a "single neuron" IC indeed prohibited?  I'm not aware that there's still much use of them, and most implementations are in software (which give lots of pretty pictures, and sometimes useful results, but I get the impression most applications are plagued by edge cases failing less than gracefully?).  I suppose one built with state of the art fab could run nearly as fast as those DAQ systems, which would be very interesting for real (or nearly real) time countermeasures.

Tim

[langwadt]

Surely it's stuff you're not allowed to export without a license, not prohibited from owning.

If you can make it yourself, sure. I don't think you would be able to buy any of these over the counter.

For example the reason Intel is not pushing much beyond 3GHz and 1500 pins could be  #5. Even if they produced it they know they couldn't export it so the sales would be low. They have a 4GHz chip but it is only 1150 pins.

an ltc2107 is 210MHz 16bit ADC they are available from all the big distributors, if you tried to order and have it shipped to
north Korea you might have problems but other that you can just buy them

[T3sl4co1l]

I have concluded that all of the listed items are the key to building an artificial human (an android) like Data from Star Trek. Think about it... Fast processors, neural networks, tons of IO... Everything you need to build a synthetic sentient being.

They're either trying to stop the robot apocalypse *or* they're (the 1%) building a robot army to enslave mankind. Think about it.

Pffbt. Nah.

I think if anything, Huxley got it more right than Orwell.  If they want to enslave mankind, they won't be creating a robot army -- they'll be inventing the dankest memes ever to hit social media.

Tim

[RobertoLG]

I have concluded that all of the listed items are the key to building an artificial human (an android) like Data from Star Trek. Think about it... Fast processors, neural networks, tons of IO... Everything you need to build a synthetic sentient being.

They're either trying to stop the robot apocalypse *or* they're (the 1%) building a robot army to enslave mankind. Think about it.

    

[EEVblog]

I couldn't resist (NSFW):

[JoeN]

I have gotten several of these, new, directly from the manufacturer.  Not something I can't own.  You, perhaps.   

Then again, in the USA we can own almost anything.  Some of the more interesting bits of kit require a $200 license, though.

[HAL-42b]

A little something about Systolic Arrays

https://youtu.be/s6SXj3v-a38?t=1h25m48s

Seems like the main application is image processing and convolution. Maybe other things if arranged in 3D form.

I wonder if Epiphany Paralella can be considered a Systolic Array.

[HAL-42b]

In the above link the lecturer mentions GPUs and how their internals are not open to the programmer. Basically they are hard wired to do one thing only, like lobotomy. Hmm...

[CatalinaWOW]

In the US most of the ITAR restrictions can be found with a little googling.  Some obscure ones are classified and you can violate them unknowingly.

There are several broad reasons for the restrictions, reading the publicly available documentation explains them as clearly as any government document explains anything.  In general I don't have any problems with these reasons.  The intentions are noble.  The problem is that many of the restrictions are in areas that are moving rapidly and so the restrictions are laughably obsolete.  The US is prevented from exporting equipment that is many years obsolete in the country that you are trying to export to.  The pain of the restriction continues long after any benefit to world peace has disappeared into the past.  Presumably this problem also applies to the WA restrictions.

[radar_macgyver]

Low phase noise oscillators, high bandwidth (and resolution) data converters, TWTs, DDS, hardware FFTs, SAW filters, fast switching synthesizers, high discharge capacitors, absolute encoders, microwave power transistors, precision frequency standards... Seems like those items are used in radar systems.

[daqq]

I don't think you would be able to buy any of these over the counter.

Actually, the ADCs are available:
http://sk.farnell.com/analog-devices/ad9691bcpz-1250/adc-dual-14bit-1-25gsps-spi-lfcsp88/dp/2505555?categoryId=700000004355&selectedCategoryId=
http://sk.farnell.com/analog-devices/ad9129bbcz/digital-to-analog-converter-dac/dp/2294371

Also, I'm pretty sure if you combed ebay for a while, you'd find some of the more interesting devices as well.

[tszaboo]

So the CoCom list still lives.
I remember the university professor telling everyone, how they sneaked 8086 in diplomatic bags. Then all they had was the bare chip, no pcb, no reference guide for opcodes. They reverse engineered the entire opcode list, and wrote publications...
At some point, the US concluded that their silicon manufacturing is some 20 times bigger than the Soviets.
And this is why we cant have nice things.

[VK3DRB]

You forgot firecrackers.

Illegal to own them in Australia. I used to pay 8 cents for a large mat of red crackers. Now they cost $30 per mat from the black market. Bloody do-gooders who tell you how to live have placed our kids in so much cotton wool, the only fun most kids have these days is playing computer games.

[BravoV]

Presumably such items or close equivalents do exist:

As this is made by a pure capitalist country, also as the in the word "capital=money", and the most of the money currently in China, then why I have the feeling all of these or even higher spec stuffs already owned by China long-long time ago before this list is even created. 

Everything has a price ...

[Richard Crowley]

Back in the Cold War days, there was a publicity photo that the official Soviet news agency TASS released. It made the newspapers around the world.  It showed a group of Soviet engineers with a large 1m scale plot of an EEPROM chip, something in the 8K size at the time. They claimed it was their latest design from their brilliant team of semiconductor experts. But it was exactly the design created by Intel. They had removed the corporate logo, but for some reason they left all the little symbols put in by the mask-layout people.  I should have taken a photo of the guys holding the newspaper photo next to the REAL framed plot.  It was only one of the more publicized cases of stolen IP that the USSR got caught at.

[AF6LJ]

I have concluded that all of the listed items are the key to building an artificial human (an android) like Data from Star Trek. Think about it... Fast processors, neural networks, tons of IO... Everything you need to build a synthetic sentient being.

They're either trying to stop the robot apocalypse *or* they're (the 1%) building a robot army to enslave mankind. Think about it.

Pffbt. Nah.

I think if anything, Huxley got it more right than Orwell.  If they want to enslave mankind, they won't be creating a robot army -- they'll be inventing the dankest memes ever to hit social media.

Tim

The enslavement starts in the public schools.
We are fairly far down that road.

[TAMHAN]

My fullest agreement on enslavement. We call it eiapopeia mentality in German, and it sucks bigtime.