Soviet production of electronic components

[MT]

Its unfair to say that "these Chinese students were almost always utterly lost unless told exactly what and how to do". You can't hold the smartest ones back by not nurturing their problem solving skills. It comes naturally to them. The people let down by excessive spoon feeding are the middling students.

Sorry but that is a rather oddball argument. Of course, the best of the best will prevail despite whatever screwball school system they were exposed to. However, what about the rest? Or those shouldn't have a chance at education because they aren't "good enough" and didn't manage to overcome the handicaps imposed on them by the school system? And that were not really their fault? (I have heard such views as well). Social arguments aside, even from a purely pragmatic point of view that would be a disastrous approach - we are sorely lacking engineers already - and 90% of those positions don't really need those best of the best, the "middling" ones would be fine.

There are a lot of bright Asian students that their education system can't break too badly, so "almost always" is just hyperbole. Get a sense of proportion.

I am not sure why do you think that what I have said was unfair. I have been speaking only about my own experience with my own students, not generalizing it to all Asian kids. However, I can tell you that even colleagues from places like Oxford had the same issues.

And finally - you are speaking about spoon feeding. That's not all what I have meant. For me spoon feeding is giving the student everything prepared on a silver plate so that they don't have to do anything themselves. I am not sure whether you have had any experience with Chinese students but I can tell you mine were certainly not "spoon fed" in the schools they were coming from.

What they had behind them were years of a hard drill - how do you think they got those math skills, for example? However, the problem with drill is that you don't get to learn how to actually solve any problems apart from those you were drilled on - and then have no idea what to do when faced with something new. What I meant is that these students were used to the teacher telling them - "draw this, calculate that". The decisions were made for them by someone of a "higher rank" and it wasn't up to them to question them, not that they were "spoon fed". There is a large cultural difference there - in Asia the teacher is a figure of authority and what they say is sacred.

I have spent the last 25 years living and working in East Asia with the engineers that come out of their education systems. What you describe is exactly what they term spoon feeding, and what many of them are unhappy about with their education. Hard drilling on narrowly focussed problems, not always gaining much depth of understanding, or development of their ability to break a high level problem down into pieces and solve those pieces. A whole lot of drilling on page after page of fairly similar questions, until they can just spot the patterns in the exams and rapidly churn out the answers. Anything that doesn't fit the patterns makes them step back, because they haven't had their ability to deal with arbitrary problems nurtured in their classes. The brightest are just thrown for a moment. The less able can get badly stuck.

One consequence of this is also that an Asian student will almost never tell you they didn't understand something - they will always say that yes, they understood everything, even though they have no clue whatsoever. It took me a while to figure this one out. The reason for it is that the teacher is a senior figure in their culture and saying that they didn't understand something would mean the teacher didn't do a good enough job - which would be disrespectful. So they will never say that. And you are left scratching your head about what is going on.

On the perspective of West v.s East chimps outperforms humans on certain things for rewards in peanuts.

[MT]

Unfortunately this is not happening. China is a highly discriminative country with strict social hierarchy. The invisible walls between social levels are very hard to break. Not many engineers will give a shit what a technician says, and no technician will dare to challenge an engineer.
When people talk about sending their kids to a technician school, they get nothing but despise from their coworkers, and the general education system considers technician training a place to dump failed students.
Despite the government's every effort to make technician a respected job, and the massive amount of money poured to technician education (China desperately needs good technicians, not math nerds), the social hierarchy formed thousands of years can't be changed in short amount of time. After all, Chinese culture is all about competition.

Confucius? Surely you would not so loosely base today's failure on a several thousand year old dude?
besides china is not a failure its about to become one grand imperial success seriously threatening
the current and crumbling down world empire USA.

The interesting thing is that china newer had (compared to current time western) a proper industrial
revolution despite (feudal) competition , it was kind of inbuilt into the feodal system not to besides
from fact that porcelain was one main showstopper while Europe found iron+ coal as the catapult
of development of its later imperialism. Or as the Chinese saying goes:
... China is large and the emperor far far away.

[Canis Dirus Leidy]

Some thread necromancy. Because I don't want to make new thread only to give a link to photos of old (eighties) Soviet IC packaging and testing equipment: https://ralphmirebs.livejournal.com/226003.html

Yes, it was (repealed in 2013 and replaced by GOST R54844) a state standard for IC packages dimensions.

Do Russian companies still use Russian standards on components?

Mostly for military/space grade electronics. However, even here type 8305.483-2 package can differ little from BGA483.

[PrecisionAnalytic]

Just how well did the US intelligence agencies do with WMD in Iraq prior to the 2nd Iraq war?

Seems we not only were chemically gay bombed and castrated... I'm guessing from what I've been reading regarding Microwaves dating back to the 50's Soviet systems... we in the U.S. Military, Roman Religious institutions and British Financial Industry City of London Offshore Crown Dependencies... we've been Electromagnetic Spectrum castrated also not just from unlawful beam forming. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Signal

http://dewdefenseprojects.blogspot.com/

https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Directed-Energy-Weapon-Detection-Sys/

I think the U.S., Great Britian and Germany is still struggling with admitting EMS systems can be in fact WMD's.  Seems most the other countries agree when proposed that radiological and radiation can be electric and magnetic fields and I'd guess charges.

[Canis Dirus Leidy]

Some thread necromancy. Because I don't want to make new thread only to give a link to photos of old (eighties) Soviet IC packaging and testing equipment: https://ralphmirebs.livejournal.com/226003.html

Necromancy time again. Same (semi)abandoned factory, the actual production line of integrated circuit crystals: https://ralphmirebs.livejournal.com/226489.html
And some old minis (Saratov-2, AKA PDP-8, and Elektronika-100/25 and Elektronika-60): https://ralphmirebs.livejournal.com/226286.html

[schmitt trigger]

Wish I could read Russian.
There must be a very interesting story behind those haunted images.

[Someone]

Wish I could read Russian.
There must be a very interesting story behind those haunted images.

Google translate does an ok job of the poetic language, only a few laughs.

[6h8c]

As a curiosity, I will mention that the 6c33c lamp is still used in some aircraft (MIG 25) today why? Because the lamp is resistant to 'electro magnetic pulse', I like this lamp very much and a lot of audio constructors use it. Not to mention oil capacitors. And ending with measuring equipment that is almost indestructible.
In the photo I noticed that one lamp broke

[6h8c]

0:10min

[janoc]

As a curiosity, I will mention that the 6c33c lamp is still used in some aircraft (MIG 25) today why? Because the lamp is resistant to 'electro magnetic pulse', I like this lamp very much and a lot of audio constructors use it. Not to mention oil capacitors. And ending with measuring equipment that is almost indestructible.
In the photo I noticed that one lamp broke

That EMP theory is mostly an urban legend.

Realize that MIG25 was designed in the late 50s, with the first flight in 1964. So the reason the tubes were used in the MIG25 is simply because nothing else was available. Transistor has been invented only in 1947 and reliable mass-produced transistors did not arrive until late 60s/early 70s - and that was in the West, not in Soviet Union, hampered by embargoes! Also, the largest piece of electronics in MIG25 was the very powerful radar - - there you simply didn't have a choice because high frequency/high power transistors suitable for such uses didn't arrive until the plane has been retired (if ever!).

So while the effect of increased EMP resistance is real (even though even vacuum tube electronics can get damaged!), it was mostly a side-effect of what was available on the market and not an explicit design decision. EMP resistance can be achieved e.g. by shielding, one would certainly not use vacuum tubes over semiconductors for this reason on a plane where every kilo of weight matters.

The reason why 6c33c is still in those aircraft (it is apparently used in a power supply for a radio) is simply because the plane is long obsolete (manufacturing stopped in 1984) and if the planes were not refit with more modern gear back then, then today nobody is going to do it anymore.

[DimitriP]

Fifty-nine years ago today with presumably inferior and overestimeated technolgy Yuri Gagaring  orbited earth.

[Canis Dirus Leidy]

Realize that MIG25 was designed in the late 50s, with the first flight in 1964. So the reason the tubes were used in the MIG25 is simply because nothing else was available. Transistor has been invented only in 1947 and reliable mass-produced transistors did not arrive until late 60s/early 70s - and that was in the West, not in Soviet Union, hampered by embargoes!

Well, П401-П403 were developed in mid-fifties, and their mass production (so that they were widely used even in DIY designs) began in the sixties. But yes, for radio transmitters, and especially radars, then there was no alternative to vacuum tubes.

[janoc]

Realize that MIG25 was designed in the late 50s, with the first flight in 1964. So the reason the tubes were used in the MIG25 is simply because nothing else was available. Transistor has been invented only in 1947 and reliable mass-produced transistors did not arrive until late 60s/early 70s - and that was in the West, not in Soviet Union, hampered by embargoes!

Well, П401-П403 were developed in mid-fifties, and their mass production (so that they were widely used even in DIY designs) began in the sixties. But yes, for radio transmitters, and especially radars, then there was no alternative to vacuum tubes.

And those transistors were horrible, with huge temperature coefficients and rather poor performance, as with most early germanium transistors. Hardly something that you can install in a fighter jet that was required to operate reliably over a large temperature range (from -40C in winter to +60-70C in summer being fried by the Sun - common conditions in different parts of Russia), in vibrations, heavy g-forces, over years of use and abuse in field conditions (Russian approach to maintenance is pretty legendary - there are some good reasons why their hardware is generally so much beefier than comparable western one!).

Also those P401-403 are hardly power transistors - the tube in question is a power amplifier tube, designed for 20-40W of output power, those transistors are designed for 20mA collector current if I am reading the datasheet correctly ...

That something was manufactured doesn't mean it was also fit for purpose. Vacuum tubes were common in contemporary American planes as well (see e.g. the comment here: shorturl.at/EIVY7), for the same reasons. Heck, even F15, F16 and A10 (much never planes than MIG 25!) had vacuum tubes in their radars, because there were simply no semiconductors fit for the task.

[vk6zgo]

As a curiosity, I will mention that the 6c33c lamp is still used in some aircraft (MIG 25) today why? Because the lamp is resistant to 'electro magnetic pulse', I like this lamp very much and a lot of audio constructors use it. Not to mention oil capacitors. And ending with measuring equipment that is almost indestructible.
In the photo I noticed that one lamp broke

That EMP theory is mostly an urban legend.

Realize that MIG25 was designed in the late 50s, with the first flight in 1964. So the reason the tubes were used in the MIG25 is simply because nothing else was available. Transistor has been invented only in 1947 and reliable mass-produced transistors did not arrive until late 60s/early 70s - and that was in the West,

That was not my experience in Australia, where by the early 1960s, solid state was well established,in both consumer & commercial comms equipment.
"Hybrid" designs offered most of the advantages of both types of technology.

In my employment prior to 1965, I watched the transition in car radios from normal tubes with solid state HT inverters, through "low voltage" tubes with solid state audio output stages to all solid state.

In the same time period, battery operated solid state "home" receivers had a short "vogue", replacing the all tube  "mantel radios" of the then recent past.
As soon as people realised that the "home" receivers were just portables in a different box, they faded away.

In 1965 I went to more technical employment, initially for a short while at a TV Studio, where there was a reasonable amount of solid state stuff, although tubes still dominated.

I then went to a Broadcasting/HF Comms site.

On the Comms side, we had a hybrid solid state/ tube 1kW self tuning HF transmitter, & later, another, not so sophisticated hybrid HF transmitter.

In 1967 I went to Wyndham, a "cow town" in the East Kimberley region of tropical Western Australia.

The equipment there which was my direct responsibility comprised :-

Tnree "hybrid" HF transmitters, three fully solid state HF receivers, six "Vogad" transmit/receive devices (all solid state) , & comprising the link to the nearby town of Kununurra, two fully solid state VHF (around 160MHz) 2 channel links, (both ends), two fully solid state 4 channel UHF (around 500MHz) links (both ends).

This equipment was several years old at the time.

It seems that the military did lag, somewhat, though.

I read an article a few years back,(effectively a "teardown") on the radios used in the Mirage IIIs which went into service with the RAAF in the '60s.
These were full of tubes!

It seems that the clunky old "Postmaster General's Dept" was more forward looking than the Air Force!







 

[janoc]

It seems that the clunky old "Postmaster General's Dept" was more forward looking than the Air Force!

More likely than not that "Postmaster General's Dept"'s gear didn't have to survive many Gs, handle large temperature swings and be reliable in the field (or at least easily repairable).

Solid state stuff in the 60s was nowhere near this level (that's where the "milspec" parts come from). Also, the military procurement has some particularities, like certification and the ability to obtain replacements even 20-30 years down the road. Tubes had all this established, those newfangled semiconductor things not yet.

When it comes to mission-critical, humans-will-die-if-it-fails stuff, conservative and proven will always beat the new shiny.

[Caliaxy]

It depends. GOST 17467 allowed use 0.05 and 0.1 inch spacing for exported chips.

Any idea where exactly those chips were exported to? Were they intended to compete with equivalent western chips?

[ciccio]

I was told that Soviet industry rationalized the 0.1 inch component lead spacing to the nearest nice metric number of 2.5 mm instead of 2.54 mm.  OK for small pin counts but by 16, 24 & 40 pin DIPs the western parts would no longer fit in the circuit boards.  Could any one in the know confirm or refute this?

Oddly enough, I worked with both Russian and Czech engineers but never thought to ask.

Many years ago the Company I was working for  was supplied (in an emergency") with "misterious" NE555 chips that were marked in Cyrillic and with pin spacing that was not 2.54 mm. Being 8 pins they fitted the 0.1" sockets without problems. Not sure if they came from Soviet Union.

[Manul]

I was unfortunate to see soviet union with my own eyes. And speaking about electronics components (and products), there is no other word for me. I'm just disgusted about any soviet/russian components. And mostly everything else. Sorry if it is off topic or too emotional.

[RoGeorge]

During the '90s I used to build Z80 computers using a lot of Russian ICs (TTLs, RAM, EEPROM, Z80 family) and there were all working just fine.  I think I still have a few.

The only annoying thing about the Russian ICs was that the pin pitch was (intentionally) 2mm instead of 2.54mm (0.1inch), so it was kind of funny to insert a 2x20 DIL Russian chip into a socket or a PCB made for 0.1inch pin spacing.   

[janoc]

I was told that Soviet industry rationalized the 0.1 inch component lead spacing to the nearest nice metric number of 2.5 mm instead of 2.54 mm.  OK for small pin counts but by 16, 24 & 40 pin DIPs the western parts would no longer fit in the circuit boards.  Could any one in the know confirm or refute this?

Oddly enough, I worked with both Russian and Czech engineers but never thought to ask.

Many years ago the Company I was working for  was supplied (in an emergency") with "misterious" NE555 chips that were marked in Cyrillic and with pin spacing that was not 2.54 mm. Being 8 pins they fitted the 0.1" sockets without problems. Not sure if they came from Soviet Union.

Could have been also Bulgarian or Serbian - several countries use Cyrilic and were manufacturing own chips during those times.

No idea about Soviet part pin spacing, but the 74xx and 4000 series clones they were making and components made by the Czechoslovakian Tesla were certainly on 0.1" pitch and interchangeable (at least where the part was a clone or equivalent of a western chip). I have e.g. a Czech MHB8255 here (classic Intel 8255 I/O port clone) in a 40 pin DIP and no issues, fits just fine into a 0.1" breadboard. Same for some salvaged Soviet 74xx series DIP14s I have in my junkbox.

That doesn't mean there couldn't be parts that are on 2.5mm spacing but it certainly wasn't something common or universal.

[raptor1956]

As a curiosity, I will mention that the 6c33c lamp is still used in some aircraft (MIG 25) today why? Because the lamp is resistant to 'electro magnetic pulse', I like this lamp very much and a lot of audio constructors use it. Not to mention oil capacitors. And ending with measuring equipment that is almost indestructible.
In the photo I noticed that one lamp broke

That EMP theory is mostly an urban legend.

Realize that MIG25 was designed in the late 50s, with the first flight in 1964. So the reason the tubes were used in the MIG25 is simply because nothing else was available. Transistor has been invented only in 1947 and reliable mass-produced transistors did not arrive until late 60s/early 70s - and that was in the West,

That was not my experience in Australia, where by the early 1960s, solid state was well established,in both consumer & commercial comms equipment.
"Hybrid" designs offered most of the advantages of both types of technology.

In my employment prior to 1965, I watched the transition in car radios from normal tubes with solid state HT inverters, through "low voltage" tubes with solid state audio output stages to all solid state.

In the same time period, battery operated solid state "home" receivers had a short "vogue", replacing the all tube  "mantel radios" of the then recent past.
As soon as people realised that the "home" receivers were just portables in a different box, they faded away.

In 1965 I went to more technical employment, initially for a short while at a TV Studio, where there was a reasonable amount of solid state stuff, although tubes still dominated.

I then went to a Broadcasting/HF Comms site.

On the Comms side, we had a hybrid solid state/ tube 1kW self tuning HF transmitter, & later, another, not so sophisticated hybrid HF transmitter.

In 1967 I went to Wyndham, a "cow town" in the East Kimberley region of tropical Western Australia.

The equipment there which was my direct responsibility comprised :-

Tnree "hybrid" HF transmitters, three fully solid state HF receivers, six "Vogad" transmit/receive devices (all solid state) , & comprising the link to the nearby town of Kununurra, two fully solid state VHF (around 160MHz) 2 channel links, (both ends), two fully solid state 4 channel UHF (around 500MHz) links (both ends).

This equipment was several years old at the time.

It seems that the military did lag, somewhat, though.

I read an article a few years back,(effectively a "teardown") on the radios used in the Mirage IIIs which went into service with the RAAF in the '60s.
These were full of tubes!

It seems that the clunky old "Postmaster General's Dept" was more forward looking than the Air Force!

Yeah, the idea that transistors weren't available until the late 60's or early seventies is flat wrong.  By the early 60's the leaders in the semiconductor industry were beginning to integrate several transistors into modules -- IBM had what the called MST back then if my memory serves me.  By the late 60's early 70's we had the first large scale integrated circuits like microprocessors. 

Of course, the transition from tubes to semiconductors lagged behind the availability of comparable components because the engineers designing PCB's and other electronics had to have time to make the educational transition as well. 

In the mid 60's the USA manufactured something like 96% of all the worlds TV sets and at that time a TV set was built from discrete components with lots of wiring requiring lots of labor to build and then it needed to be aligned and adjusted which required lots more labor.  TV sets of that era were very expensive.  So, the US electronics industry looked to lower costs by outsourcing production to Japan and within a decade Japan was making the lion share of all the TV sets in the world.  By that time the integration that TI pioneered in the late 50's had dramatically lowered the parts count and wiring requirements AND significantly reduced the alignment and adjustment costs as well.  By the late 70's the US electronics makers were non-existent in the TV set industry having been REPLACED by Sony et al.  When you un-layer that move what you realize is that the leadership of the US electronics companies was pretty dreadful and had they understood the impact of integration they would have know that the route to lowering cost and improving quality didn't require outsourcing but adopting integration.


Brian

[janoc]

The only annoying thing about the Russian ICs was that the pin pitch was (intentionally) 2mm instead of 2.54mm (0.1inch), so it was kind of funny to insert a 2x20 DIL Russian chip into a socket or a PCB made for 0.1inch pin spacing.   

That's interesting, which chips are those? I have some salvaged Soviet chips (74xx series logic) from some sort of computer and they are all in standard 0.1" pitch DIPs.

I believe chips made for export were on 0.1" or 0.05" pitch and ICs meant for internal Russian/Soviet market used the metric pitch (so the same IC could have existed in both, the only difference was a letter prefix in the marking). Which could explain why I haven't seen those metric ones.

[wraper]

The only annoying thing about the Russian ICs was that the pin pitch was (intentionally) 2mm instead of 2.54mm (0.1inch), so it was kind of funny to insert a 2x20 DIL Russian chip into a socket or a PCB made for 0.1inch pin spacing.   

That's interesting, which chips are those? I have some salvaged Soviet chips (74xx series logic) from some sort of computer and they are all in standard 0.1" pitch DIPs.

I believe chips made for export were on 0.1" or 0.05" pitch and ICs meant for internal Russian/Soviet market used the metric pitch (so the same IC could have existed in both, the only difference was a letter prefix in the marking). Which could explain why I haven't seen those metric ones.

I'm not aware of any imperial variant for export. Probably you simply did not notice the difference since it's small for low pin count ICs. It only becomes an interchangeability problem for 28+ pin ICs.

[janoc]

Yeah, the idea that transistors weren't available until the late 60's or early seventies is flat wrong.  By the early 60's the leaders in the semiconductor industry were beginning to integrate several transistors into modules -- IBM had what the called MST back then if my memory serves me.  By the late 60's early 70's we had the first large scale integrated circuits like microprocessors. 

Please, do read again what I have posted. Then you will see that you have completely missed the point.

The MIG25 was developed in the 50s, first flew in 1964!  Please, don't tell me than in 1960s there were power transistors available on the market capable of handling 20-40W of power, in wide temperature ranges, as required for this application. The issue is not whether transistors as such were available but whether transistors suitable for the task were. Which is not quite the same thing.

Also, we are talking about Soviet Union, so maybe 10 years R&D lag in electronics, perhaps more, with a country still recovering from the war, with Stalin in power and planned economy. What IBM was doing in the late 60s, early 70s is thus totally irrelevant.

[wraper]

During the '90s I used to build Z80 computers using a lot of Russian ICs (TTLs, RAM, EEPROM, Z80 family) and there were all working just fine.  I think I still have a few.

The only annoying thing about the Russian ICs was that the pin pitch was (intentionally) 2mm instead of 2.54mm (0.1inch), so it was kind of funny to insert a 2x20 DIL Russian chip into a socket or a PCB made for 0.1inch pin spacing.   

It's 2.50mm instead of 0.1"/2.54mm, not 2mm.