A 25X l Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 O w 0 A Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret 25X1 Soviet Computer Technology Little Prospect for Catching Up C An Intelligence Assessment Secret 85-10038 March 1985 Copy 3 5 5 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 25X l Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 0 2 we Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 were Directorate of 3 it Intelligence 5 Cf Soviet Computer Technology Little Prospect for 1 Catching Up An Intelligence Assessment This paper was written by Of ce of Scienti c and Weapons Research Comments and queries are welcome and may be addressed to the Chief Information Technologies Branch OSWR Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Secret 85-10038 March 1985 25X1 25X1 25X1 25X1 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Key Judgments Information available as of I November 1984 was used in this report Secret Soviet Computer Technology Little Prospect for Catching Up The United States leads the USSR in all elds of general purpose digital computer technology This lead ranges from at least three years for internal memory devices to more than 10 years in high-performance magnetic storage systems In general the outlook for the remainder of the 19805 will be for the US lead to increase although for some high- priority applications the - to reduce or design around a particular technology gap The Soviets have made progress both in computer technology and in computer production techniques however their progress has been over- whelmed by the rapid advances made in the West and Japan The Soviets status in seven important areas of computer technology is summarized in gure 1 These estimates are based upon the rst delivery dates of functionally equivalent US and Soviet civilian computer products If we were able to include computer production volume and quality in our measure of technolo then the United States would be at least several more years ahead We believe there are many reasons why the Soviets trail the United States in computer technology - The Soviets centrally planned economy does not permit adequate exibility to respond to design or manufacturing changes frequently encountered in computer production this situation has often resulted in a shortage of critical components especially for new products - The extraordinary compartmentalization of information in the especially on technologies with potential military applications compart mentalization not only restricts the ow of information but also results in much duplication of work because of a lack of knowledge about other activities - The Soviet preoccupation with meeting production quotas frequently at the expense of component and system quality control 0 The lack of adequate incentives for Soviet managers to take the risks associated with innovations or new technology - Poor coordination between separate design institutes and production facilities sometimes resulting in products that have to be redesigned to t a factory s production capabilities Secret 85-10038 March I 985 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 25X1 25X l 25X1 25X l Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret 25X l Figure 1 Computer Technology United States Versus USSR i i Microprocessors i 1 i Internal memories i my 1 Minicomputcrs I Mainframes Supercomputers I Soither lligh-pcrlormancc peripherals Approximate length ofUS lead in years 25X l 303312 12-84 0 The Soviets lag in computer-aided design and computer-aided manufac- turing techniques caused by a belated development start and also ironically by the Soviets lag in computer technology - Concerns by Soviet of cials that a computer is a powerful tool that could be used for antirevolutionary activity and that a proliferation of comput- ers might reduce the tight control of information in the these concerns tend to restrict access to and rsthand knowledge about computers as well as their applications - Provincial disputes within and between ministerial and institutional organizations Secret iv Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 ecre 25X l - Very poor customer supportmincluding inadequate user feedback poor installation support and delayed maintenance that frequently results in reduced ef ciency and productivity for computers in use Similar reasons also account for the Soviet lag in microelectronics technology as well as instrumentation and test equipment these technology lags in components and basic electronic tools that are essential for modern computers contribute directly to the Soviet lag in computer technology In our view the entrenched Soviet bureaucracy would probably nd it di icult to take the necessary steps in the foreseeable future to correct many of these well-recognized problems 25X1 The Soviet lag in computer technology and production is resulting in a lag in both civilian and military computer applications We believe that the Soviets have suf cient numbers of computers for high-priority low-volume military and civilian projects It is the remaining user community including Eastern Bloc allies who will experience shortages and delays in obtaining their desired computer systems We expect the shortage of Soviet automation equipment to hinder seriously the modernization of their industrial base and also the growth of their economyE 25X l The Soviets apparently lag the United States also in the application of computers in their elded military systems Historically there has been a tendency in the USSR to avoid the complex multimission military systems for which computers are an essential are frequently preferred in the United States The generally conservative Soviet weapon design philosophy has probably not taxed Soviet computer capabilities in the past However this may be changing We believe that the Soviets will be forced to incorporate more-advanced technology into their weapon 5 stems in order to stay competitive with Western military development 25X1 The Soviets most signi cant hardware de ciencies are in supercomputers and high-performance magnetic disk technology We do not expect the Soviets to have a supercomputer until 1985 at the earliest whereas the rst US commercial supercomputer was delivered in 1976 In magnetic disk systems the Soviets are about a decade behind the United States Lags in these critical areas will constrain Soviet computer system performance for applications requiring high-speed capabilities such as ballistic missile defense and applications requiring high input output data rates such as large real-time command control and communications systems In the Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret NOFORN software arena the number of experienced Soviet programmers who are also cleared for classi ed projects may still be insu icient to complete all priority projects on time 25X l We expect the Soviets future progress in computer technology to be heavily dependent upon their advances in microelectronics and in second ary storage technology and upon their continuing activity in legally and il- legally acquiring Western and Japanese hardware and software Judging from past performance and current technology assessments we expect the Soviets to fall further behind the United States throughout the 19805 If the Soviets obtained turnkey production facilities or detailed production know-how from the West or Japan as they have done in the past they would be able to narrow at least temporarily a speci c technology gap Also if they made a major technological breakthrough in areas where they appear to be investing heavily such as in optical computing or optical storagemand chances are about even that they will the Soviets could overcome some of their computer de ciencies for applications such as ballistic missile defense or real time reconnaissance 25X l Secret vi Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R00050113000 Contents 1-8 Page Key Judgments Introduction 1 Microprocessors 1 Internal Memory Technology 4 Semiconductor Memories 4 Magnetic Cores 5 Plated-Wire Memories 6 Minicomputers 7 Nairi-4 Minicomputer 8 PS-2000 Array Processor 9 General Purpose Mainframes 10 Large Scienti c Computers 13 Status 13 Elbrus Computer 13 M-10 Computer 16 New Activity 19 Software 19 Peripherals 19 Magnetic Disks 19 Magnetic Tapes 21 Magnetic Bubbles 21 Technological and Military Implications 21 Tables 1 Soviet MicrOprocessors 2 2 Characteristics of Soviet SM-I Minicomputers 8 3 Technical Speci cations for Soviet Ryad-2 Mainframe Computers 15 4 Standard Soviet Elbrus-1 Con gurations 18 vii Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R00050113000 1-8 25X l Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Figures 1 Computer Technology United States Versus USSR iv in 2 US Intel-8080A MicrOprocessor and Soviet K580 3 m3 Soviet Copies of US Microprocessors 1971-83 4 4 Semiconductor Memory Technology United States Versus USSR 5 1971-87 5 Magnetic Core Memory Technology United States Versus USSR 6 1955-85 6 Soviet Copies of US Minicomputers 9 7 Soviet Minicomputer 10 8 Soviet Nairi-41 Minicomputer 10 Soviet Array Processor 1 1 7 I r 10 Timetable IBM and Soviet Ryad Mainframes 1964-84 12 1 1 Soviet ES-1060 Twin Computer Complex 13 12 Mainframe Performance United States Versus USSR 14 IBM System Software in Use in CEMA Countries 17 14 Soviet Elbrus-l Computer Complex Circa 1980 18 A15 Magnetic Disk Technology United States Versus USSR 1965-88 20 if Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Soviet Computer Technology Little ct for Catching Up Introduction This report is an assessment of the state of the art of Soviet general purpose digital electronic computer technology It is primarily a condensed version of a more detailed Technical Intelligence Report on the same subject The assessment is based on information about Soviet civilian computer systems however we believe that this information is indicative of Soviet capabilities in militar eneral purpose computer Microprocessors A basic microprocessor typically consists of the inter- connection of an arithmetic and logic unit ALU a register set very fast storage a control unit and interrupts A microcomputer consists of a micro- processor plus a main memor an input medium and an output medium The current state of the art in Soviet micrOprocessor technology is a 16-bit single-chip capability in low- volume production and 16-bit chip-sets in serial pro- duction The Soviets are four to six years behind the United States in microprocessor technology however we expect the US lead to increase in the near future as 32-bit monolithic processor technology matures We have been able to identify 20 types of Soviet microprocessors table 1 Although 20 is a small number relative to the number of micrOprocessors commercially available in the West and Japan the Soviets have judiciously spread their resources across a wide variety of semiconductor devices and fabrica tion processes Thus Soviet design engineers may choose a semiconductor device for a particular appli- cation on the basis of a wide variety of trade-offs in speed power radiation resistance and cost Secret 25X1 25X l The Soviets can however be expected to make in- creased use of complementary metal oxide semicon- ductor CMOS devices in the next few years The best known advantage of CMOS technology is its low power both in the standby and in the operating mode The high immunity of a CMOS device to noise encourages design engineers to use a lower voltage power supply In addition special processing tech- niques can make CMOS chips more resistant than the widely used negative-channel metal oxide semicon- ductor chips to a speci ed radiation dose rate or uence CMOS devices have other advantages over devices - Inherently faster switching times - Better resistance to soft errors caused by alpha- particle radiation - Higher tolerance to transistor-leakage problems In the light of these advantages we expect the Soviet military to direct major Ministry of Electronics In- dustry MEP resources toward the advancement of their CMOS fabrication processes during the remain- der of the 19805 25x1 25X1 25X l As in many non Communist countries US micro- processors have served as the model for many and probably most Soviet products gures 2 and 3 In general Soviet microprocessors re ect various de- grees of similarity to US products table 1 column 4 However the Soviets have not copied US counterparts exactly but rather have adapted the US designs to Soviet fabrication processes We expect other US counterparts to be identi ed in time The Soviets also have demonstrated an indigenous design capability in microprocessors according to evaluations of a K587 device that was received by a US rm in 1978 25x1 25X l Perhaps the most striking aspect of the list of Soviet microprocessors table 1 is the preponderance of bit slice 2 devices We believe that the Soviets preponder- ance of bit-slice devices resulted from de ciencies in 2 Bit-slice devices and chip-set microprocessors implement the functions usually associated with a monolithic single-chip inte- grated circuit on many chips 4 0 A1 Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Table 1 Soviet Microprocessors Desi gnator K532 K536 K555 K580 K581 K582 K583 K586 K587 77T hiibi EW 777378171137 Refere e US Counterpart Microcomputers and Other K588 K589 K1800 K1801 K1802 K1804 K1810 '7 A A Applications 1976 1979 Elektronika 1W6 Nn9l 1978 Mel-8080A 1973 8191 1800 SM-1803 05 Sport K1-10 VEF-1021 7 _r -22 -23 military 738193116 1979 GI 1975 Elektronika-GO a 1979 TI sap-0400 1975 A 19180 I Ryad computer equipment 77 ills 4 3_ 77179777 Specialized microcomputers 1980 ElektronikaSS-21 SS-31 7 a 1978 None 7 City 16a 777 7 r__1_9_7_7 None Military 5531 7 77 1977 Intel-3002 1974 Elektronika-60 bus format- ter SM minis airborne pro- cessors Ryad computer equipment PS-315 77718761741777 1982 1975 1980 A a 1981 NTs-ogp A 1981 7 7 7_ 7 if 77671176577187 1983 Intel-80876 1977 7777 1979 7 Military 77 Intel-8085 1976 7 1983 Intel-8088 1979 1 9 Bit-slice device it is not certain that K555 is a microprocessor Soviet open-source literature in 1977 identi ed it as a two-bit-slice microprocessor but a 1984 open-source catalog equates the K555 family to the Texas Instruments Tl SN74LS series which does not have a micro- processor product Soviet Agat is modeled after US Apple microcomputer architecture 0 May have been originally TTL A G1 12 micrOprocessor was mentioned in a 1978 Soviet publica- tion we suspect that it is actually a microcomputer Secret MOS metal oxide semiconductor CMOS complementary MOS positive-channel MOS negative-channel MOS TTL transistor-transistor logic STTL Schottky-clamped TTL ECL emitter-coupled logic SOS silicon on sapphire IIL integrated-injection logic 25X1 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 m In Figure 2 US Intel 8080A Microprocessor and Soviet K580 The K580 is a close but not exact plus ca con Soviet microelectronic fabrication capabilities during the l970s and early 1980s Although single-chip microprocessors are cheaper smaller and more reli- able they also place more-stringent demands than do multichip microprocessors on the production equip- ment and the overall fabrication process The Soviets deficiencies in the production of semiconductor de vices would also explain their usage of bit-slice archi tectures in metal oxide semiconductor MOS technol ogies something that is not done in the West or Japan because it is simply not ef cient or cost effective We believe that all of the Soviet microprocessors listed in table 1 are in at least limited production A US market analysis firm estimated that over 60 million microprocessors were shipped by companies in the non-Communist world during 1983 On the basis of fragmentary information we suspect that the pro- duction volume of Soviet micr0processors lags this ligure by two to three orders of magnitude Ironically low production volumes of microelectronic devices Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 130001 -8 Secret Sway Mun may hinder advances in Soviet microelectronic pro- duction technology Major US manufacturers have attributed a significant portion of their high yield and production technology advances to their very large production volume which quickly exposes the manu- facturing processes that are the leading causes of rejection There are reliable reports reflecting Soviet interest in or development of microprocessor applications for their military We do not have information at this time that a Soviet microprocessor is currently de- ployed in or designed into any specific Soviet military system There is a great potential for using small fast microprocessors with low power requirements in mili- tary applications and we believe that it is simply a matter of time before we obtain firm evidence that the Soviets are so using them Secret CIA-RDP86R00995R000501 130001 -8 25X1 25X1 25X1 25X1 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Figure 3 Soviet Copies of US Microprocessors 1971-83 0 United States USSR lntel-8088 4 years Intel-8086 6 years K1810 Intel-8085 7 years Motorola-10800 7 years K1800 AMD-2901 6 years K1804 GI CP-1600 4 years K581 Tl SBP-0400 4 years K582 lntel-3002 3 years K589 Intel-8080A 5 years K580 met 4004 World's rst microprocessor I 1 1971 25X l 303316 12-84 Internal Memory Technology Over 50 semiconductor RAMs and over 50 ROM- type memory devices most in more than one version Semiconductor Memories have been identi ed in Soviet catalogs and Open The Soviets are three to ve years behind the United literature As with their microprocessors the Soviets States in semiconductor random-access memory have spread their semiconductor memories across a RAM technology gure 4 but when production variety of technologies including low -Dower CMOS capability and quality are considered we assess that and high-Speed emitter-coupled logic 25X1 the US lead can be extended by at least several more years The Soviets literature indicates that they are the Soviets began 25X1 even further behind the United States in read-only usmg small-capaCIty semlconductor RAMS in the late memory ROM technologies including programma- 19705 There were adequate supplies of accept- ble ROMS PROMs and erasable PROMS able quality of 16-Kbit 1K 1 024 RAMS in EPROMS mid-1980 The 25x1 25X l Secret 4 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Figure 4 Semiconductor Memory Technology United States Versus USSR 1971-87a Capacity in bits United States I USSR I 024 256 64K 4 years 197Year of rst production Based on metal oxide semiconductor dynamic random-access memories 25X1 303319 12-04 Soviets probably had a 64-1 bit dynamic RAM in the same no matter where the data are stored in the sample production by the early 19805 In the United memory Second core memories are nonvolatile when States and Japan the RAM is now being power is disconnected or interrupted core memories produced and prototypes of a 1-Mbit RAM have been do not lose their information as many semiconductor made with improved photomhographic techniques in- memories do Third core memories are available in stead of X_ray or Ebeam lithography contrary to systems that have been hardened against nuclear what was frequently forecast in the technical litera- radiation Fourth cores 1'10 Power in order to ture We expect that the Soviets will not put 256-Kbit retain data in a Standby mOde- on the Other Side Of AMS into production until the late 19808 the ledger core memories require much more physical 25x1 space and more power to operate and cost much Magnetic Cores Magnetic core memories have several features that are attractive to the military First magnetic core is a random-access memory the time to retrieve data is 5 Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Figure 5 Magnetic Core Memory Technology United States Versus USSR 1955-85 External core diameter in_n1__i_ _s United States USSR 120 llili 80 10 4t 20 0 1955 so 65 70 75 80 85 Year of production 303321 12-84 more than a semiconductor memory of like capacity The trend in US military applications is toward semiconductor memories with backup or shadow memories in critical applications Magnetic core technology is frequently gauged by the external diameter of the basic ferrite toroid 3 the smaller the diameter the greater the memory capaci- ty per unit of area Using this core diameter as a gure of merit we nd that the Soviets lag the United States in magnetic core technology by about ve years gure 5 We believe that this lead was maintained during the 19705 even though the empha- sis on the development of magnetic cores in the United States decreased as fast as the popularitv and can be stored at each intersection of these wires Plated-wire memories have several characteristics that are attractive to military-system designers Plated wire memories provide protection against elec tromagnetic pulse EMP and have good radiation hardening properties These memories are nonvolatile and can be made with a nondestructive readout NRDO thus providing additional protection for the stored data However plated wire memories are ex- tremely expensive on the order of $1 00 per bit whereas most other memory technologies are just pennies per bit or less reported in the mid- 19705 on the Sovrets purchase of a turnkey factory from the Japanese to produce plated-wire memories Included in the agreement was extensive documenta- tion that should enable the Soviets to build duplicate plants if they so desired The Japanese turned the new factory in Yerevan over to the Soviets in December 1976_the same year that the Japanese rm discon- tinued plated-wire memories The output capacity of the Soviet plant was rated at 120 million bits of wire memory per year This was actually higher than the capacity of the plated-wire plants in Japan because of the high requirements set forth in the contract with the USSR in the rst 18 months the Yerevan plant produced fewer than eight million bits of plated-wire memory This shortfall was attributed not to the Japanese equip- ment but to the low quality of Soviet base metals usage of semiconductor memories increased Plated-Wire Memories A plated-wire memory is a random-access memory that consists of a plane of parallel wires electroplated with a thin lm of magnetic material and overlaid by a set of transverse word lines One bit of information The small doughnut-shaped magnetic de stores the data in a magnetic core memory array Secret In the United States plated-wire memories have been developed for the guidance computer in the Polaris and Poseidon missiles Plated-wire memories have been used also in the US Minuteman weapon system computer as well as brie y in a few US and Japanese commercial computers In a 1982 list of US space computers being used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration nine of 17 systems used plated wire for their main memory It is reasonable to expect that the Soviets would also use their plated- wire systems in ruggedized mobile applications with modest memory capacity requirements Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 25X1 25X l 25X1 25X l 25X1 25X l 25X1 25X1 25X1 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Minicomputers The Soviets are four to six years behind the United States in 16-bit minicomputer technology They may realize their rst 32-bit superminicomputer by the end of 1985 Following along the lines of the successful CEMA cooperative program in mainframe computers the Council of Principal Constructors of Minicomputer Systems was created in 1974 in an attempt to coordi- nate minicomputer development within CEMA coun- tries The Soviet Union assumed the major role and developed four new minicomputers the -2 -3 and -4 This group and possibly the SM-S constitutes the rst eneration of SM minicomputers SM-I table 2 The and the SM-2 are modeled after the Hewlett-Packard HP-2100 architecture and are pri- marily for process and production control as well as real-time applications The SM-Z is essentially an with an improved central processing unit and more main memory These two machines are unusual examples of Soviet plagiarism in that the resulting Soviet systems are not compatible with HP software The Impuls Scienti c Production Association devel- 0ped the and the the is produced at the Ministry of Instrument Making Automation Equipment and Control Systems Minpribor plant in Ore and the SM-Z is produced by the Impuls association in Severodonetsk Impuls is currently pro- moting modernized versions called the and the SM-2M The great majority of the publicity has been given to the SM-ZM which has been identi ed in a Soviet brochure with 25 different con gurations including 22 dual-processor versions In an open- source article the deputy general director of Impuls states that di 'erent computer architectures will be used to overcome the disadvantages of traditional minicomputers such as the SM-Z He then describes the SM-1210 multiprocessor and the PS-3000 array processor which Impuls may now have in production As in the United States the trend in the USSR is toward multiprocessor systems to avoid the through- put bottleneck caused se uential rocessing on a Swami In 1981 the USSR State Prize in Technology was awarded to 10 Soviet managers and engineers for having developed the SM-3 and SM-4 minicomputers 7 Secret and for having put these machines into serial produc- tion The SM-3 and the are modeled after the low end of the US Digital Equipment Corporation DEC minicomputer line and are intended primarily for small scienti c and engineering applica tions The SM-3 and SM-4 can execute DEC soft- ware without modi cation The newer SM-4 with 256 Kbytes of main memory can execute RSX- 1 1M Operating system The popular UNIX Operating system which was originally written in the United States for DEC minicomputers also is known to be available in the USSR Copies of minicomputers are also being produced in Bulgaria Czechoslovakia East Germany Hungary Poland Romania and Cuba 25X1 25X1 25X1 Being copies of US systems the Soviet SM systems provide a good basis for a comparison of 16-bit minicomputer technology According to the year of rst installation for the through the SM-S gure 6 the Soviets are about four to six years behind the United States in general purpose 16-bit minicomputer technology However if we were to go by the quality and quantity of production several more years could be added to this US lead In 1979 Soviet of cial were having yield and reliability pro ems in e1r SM production line They h0ped to resolve these problems and to be producing 1 000 SM units per year by 1982 the bulk of which were to be SM-3 and SM-4 models In the fall of 1981 25x1 25X1 25X1 the Kiev production plant was 25x1 500 SM-4 units would be produced that 25x1 year Even the more optimistic forecast is quite modest considering that the SM is the primary minicomputer series for the entire Soviet Union By comparison after about a decade of production DEC had almost 100 000 minicomputers installed worldwide by the end of 1981 In late 1982 a reliable source reported that the SM-4 would be replaced by the newer SM-l420 also called the SM-S mini- computer in 1983 gure 7 25X1 In the spring of 1983 25x1 the Ministry of Electronics ustry as ea ed to deve10p manufacture and sell its own line of minicomputers in the Soviet 25x1 Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Table 2 Characteristics of Soviet SM-I Minicomputers Characteristic SlVl-l SM-2 SM-3 SM-4 SM-S Average speed in kops a 7130 7 155 777718757 777d 77V Main memory Kwords 124 128 Instruction time in microseconds 7 Fixed point 7 Addition - 5 1'2 Multiplication 736 6137 7 to 16c 10 8 7 Division 17 19 5 12 7 r Floating point 7 -7 Addition _7 33 18 to 40 320 28 7 Multiplicationw 7 if 7 7 A 110b 23 410C 34 Division 7 46 52 i These speeds except for the SM-5 whose speed is estimated were cited in Soviet literature and seem to be more realistic than the 250 kops for the and 800 kops for the SM-4 which are frequently quoted in open literature Probably implemented in software Implemented in software kops 1 000 operations per second Kwords l 024 words with 16 data bits per word -- Not known Note Soviet open literature has placed the in the family however a Soviet export brochure circa 1983 claims that the SM-5 is in the SM-ll family of minicomputers Union The Soviet of cial said that MEP had made exact replicas of the DEC minicomputers We do not know at this time whether the Soviet official was referring to 16-bit minicomputer line or to its newer 32-bit VAX superminicomputer fam- ily Minpribor has been the primary manufacturer of minicomputers in the USSR to date If MEP begins producing minicomputers serious interministerial conflicts could easily arise between MEP and Minpri- bor because MEP is also the primary possibly the sole source of microelectronic components for Min pribor minicomputers At an international conference in 1981 an East European scientist stated that the Soviets were devel- oping a minicomputer that would be compatible with software for VAX superminicomputer Al- though information is very sparse we believe on the Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 basis of past Soviet accomplishments that the Soviets will produce their rst 32-bit minicomputer by the end of 1985 and that this machine will be compatible with DEC VAX software rst VAX the 1 1 780 introduced in 1978 is a complex machine requiring 23 printed-circuit boards for its central processor We believe that the Soviets will have an easier time copying the DEC VAX 11 750 which with its four-board processor is much less complicat- ed than the 11 780 Nairi-4 Minicomputer Although the SM series has no known special versions for military applications at least one civilian general purpose minicomputer the Nairi-4 has been modi ed 25X l 25X1 25X l Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Figure 6 Soviet Copies of US Minicomputers United States I USSR 4 years 04 3 years SM-S 5 years Oo 4years SM-3 HP-ZIMX 6years 6years rm m-D 1971 72 74 76 Year of production 1' May be a copy of less the cache memory 78 80 82 83 The SM-4 is known to have been a copy of l 34A since at least the early I980s The original SM-4 may have been a copy of the 303320 12-54 for such usel special Nairi-4 with gold contacts was being built in 1977 for the Soviet military Indeed the Nairi-4 has several other conspicuous characteristics that would make it useful for many xed land-based military applications One is the use of plated wire to provide a nonvolatile main memory having a nondestructive readout Plated-wire memory also has good radiation- resistance characteristics The Nairi 4 minicomputer has used a magnetic drum for bulk storage Magnetic drums were used in many early automated for the US military but they have largely been replaced by xed-head mag- netic disk systems by core memories and more recently by semiconductor memories The physical size of the Nairi-4 computer would limit it to applica- tions at xed ground-based sites or on large mobile platforms A new version called the Nairi-4l was brie y mentioned several times in the open literature in 1982 A non0perational Nairi-41 was displayed at the 1983 Leipzig Spring Fair gure 8 According to a technical brochure the Nairi-4l has a 540-nanosec ond cycle time for register-register instructions and up to 256 Kbytes of semiconductor memory PS-2000 Array Processor The PS-2000 is a microprocessor-based array proces- sor system deveIOped in the late 1970s at the Control Problems Institute Moscow in coordination with the Impuls Scienti c Production Association in Severo- donetsk gure 9 With Impuls involvement it is likely that the will operate only with the SM-Z and the SM-2M minicomputers Soviet litera- ture states that the PS-2000 consists of eight 16 32 Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 25X l 25X1 25X1 25X l Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Figure 7 Soviet Miuicompute or 64 processing elements that can be dynamically rearranged In Soviet literature processing element usually refers to a bit-slice microprocessor component The word in the l2 16 or 24 bits suggest a 2-bit or a 4-bit device as the basic building block This hypothesis in conjunction with the opera- tional speed of the and the time at which it was developed suggests that the K589 or the KS 4 microprocessor is used in this machine A Soviet article announced that the was able to halve the computation time of a modeling problem executed on a uniprocessor minicomputer probably an SM-Z This increase in performance seems more realistic than the extraordinarily high speeds claimed in the Soviet press since 198l Even so the PS-2000 is important because it re ects the Soviets interest and progress in array processor technolog General Purpose Mainframes The term mainframe which originally referred to the central processing unit and sometimes the main memory is now generally used to describe a class of computers exemplified by the IBM large-computer line Although far surpassed in numbers by the Secret 25X1 25X l Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Figure 9 Soviet PS-2000 Array Processo microcomputers and minicomputers sold today the mainframe class still accounts for over 50 percent of the dollar volume in computer sales worldwide Historically the Soviets together with their CEMA partners have placed great emphasis on and have invested significant resources in the development and production of their series of software-compatible mainframes known as the Uni ed System ES Edin- Sistema or as the Series the Soviets patterne lirst Ryad family after the highly successful System 360 line Ryad-Z developers used the IBM System 370 as a design basis The adoption of a proven commercial system was a low-risk decision enabling the Soviets to circumvent much of the costs associated with the development of new comput- ers as well as most of the software development costs In both Ryad-l and Ryad-Zt Soviet models were rst installed approximately seven to eight years after their IBM counterpart gure 10 Several improved versions of the Ryad-l series were put into serial production during the 19703 in Bulgaria ES-10223 and the USSR ES-1022 4033 and -1052 Other Ryad-l machines included the Czechoslovak ES- 1021 which was not compatible with IBM Sys- tem 360 software and the Polish ES-1032 ll 25X1 The Ryad-2 family initially consisted of ve members that entered production in the late 19703kthe ES-1025 Czechoslovakia USSR Bulgar- ia ES-1045 USSR ES-IOSS GDR and ES-1060 USSR plus a sixth the ES-1065 USSR which was in production by 1982 The slipped from the Ryad-l program because of technological problems including overheating of its fast integrated circuit logic and is now considered part of the Ryad-2 series gure I 1 Three improved Ryad-Z models were in or nearing production in 1984 the Czechoslo- vak the East German 138-1056 and the Soviet Figure 2 shows a performance comparison of Ryad-2 mainframes and some IBM System 370 computers The values for the speed operations per second 5 opsl and the memory size are taken from Soviet and Western literature Although lagging US mainframe 25X1 95x1 25X l 25X1 Hungary produces the minicomputer which is also listed as a Ryad-2 machine but is not compatible with IBM System 370 software Operations per secon and other single measures of effectiveness are an oversimpli cation as system performance is actually a com fmany factors especially the speci c applica- 25x1 25X1 25X1 Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Figure 10 Timetable IBM and Soviet Ryad Mainframes 1964-84 V Ryad System 5 360 announced 8 360 delivered 5 3 70 announced 8 370 delivered 8 years I Ryad l revealed '1r announced i I964 as 68 70 72 303325 12-84 technology the Ryad-2 family still offers the Soviets and their allies a fairly wide range of computing capability Table 3 shows some Ryad-2 technical speci cations We believe that the Soviets are produc- ing Ryad-2 machines in suf cient numbers to satisfy at least priority users However when one considers quantity quality and performance cost ratios real- ized by the general user population the Soviets are about four years further behind the United States than the seven to eight years indicated by the dates of rst delivery Based on open literature gure 13 illustrates those system software products that we believe are in use with some name changes in the Soviet Bloc Open literature suggests that the Soviets are using most IBM system software products released prior to 1978 the most notable exce tion is Multiple Virtual we In November 1981 the Soviets announced a new Ryad mainframe the 138 1036 a scale model of this com- puter was exhibited at the Budapest Spring Technical Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Ryad-2 revealed Ryad_1 Ryad-l delivered 308X delivered 308K announced 43XX delivered 43XX announced 303x delivered 303K announced it 7 years Ryad-3 Ryad-3 revealed announced Ryad-2 delivered Ryad-2 announced Fair in 1983 A Soviet export brochure obtained in 1984 states that the 138-1036 represents the rst stage in developing Ryad 3 computers According to open literature the ES-1036 can execute up to 400 000 operations per second has a main memory of 2 to 4 megabytes has an 8-kilobyte buffer or cache memo- ry and will have a Virtual machine Operating system We suspect that Ryad-3 computers will be cepies of the IBM 43XX and 303x families In the spring of 1982 the Soviets also brie y mentioned that they were developing a prototype ES-1061 computer which will be a modernized version of the ES-1060 The ES-1061 was to enter serial production in 1984 according to Soviet Open literature Other new Ryad designators include - Hungary ES-1016 -1017 - Czechoslovakia ES-1026 -1027 - Poland and or USSR ES-1034 -1047 - GDR ES-1056 -1057 - USSR ES-1046 -1066 -1067 -1077 -1087 12 25X1 25X1 25X1 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret We believe that at least the and -1061 were in production in 1984 and that most of the machines listed above will enter production over the next two to three years Large Scienti c Computers Status We believe that the Soviets will not develop their rst digital electronic supercomputer until 1985 at the earliest The lack of a modern supercomputer can restrict or slow advanced programs as well as civil and military applications such as energy explo- ration and strategic missile de ense that require a huge number of computations l3 Figure Soviet ES-1060 Twin Computer Complei Elbrus Computer The USSR does not have a supercomputer in a class with the US Cray l or Cyber-ZOS The machine most likely to become the rst Soviet supercomputer will probably come from the Elbrus project at the Institute for Precision Mechanics and Computer Technology in Moscow The Elbrus-l multiprocessor computer was created and fostered during the 19705 by V S Burtsev the director of The Elbrus-l system employs a tagged architecture with a stack organization and an addressing structure similar to those of the Burroughs B-6700 system rst deliv- ered in 1970 in the United States However Elbrus-l is much more ambitious in that it reportedly has from Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 25X l 25X l 25X1 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 Secret Figure 12 Mainframe Performance United States Versus USSR Thousands of operations per second m Ryad 100 000 77 7 3084-QX 308I-KX 10 000 7 3083_Qx 95 1065 168 165 a 1060 i 110 1 11 155 1045 1055 East German 145 35 1035 125 We HS 1026 Czechoslovak 1025 Czechoslovak 10 I 1 111111111 Main memory in kilobytes 1 11111111 1 00 1 000 10 000 100 000 303327 12-84 one to 10 central processing units CPUs operating 1 all of the Elbrus-1 com- with up to four input output proces- puters 01 which he was aware are single-processor sors and 32 memory modules interconnected through models except one machine that has two CPUs We a series of crossbar switches gure 14 in 1982 a suspect that this small number of processors in Elbrus computers being delivered may be due to the lack of a An multiprocessor assigns tasks to different proces generalized Operating system 01- to troubles with such sors using a set of indicators to designate which processors are free and which are busy Typically a processor will Operate on a task until it has completed the task or until it is interrupted by the Secret 14 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 25X1 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Table 3 Technical Speci cations for Soviet Ryad-2 Mainframe Computers Model ES- 1025 ES-1035 ES- 1045 ES-1055 ES-1060 ES-1061 ES-1065 Estimated date of rst 1980 1977 1979 1979 1978 1984 1982 delivery Production plant Cakovice Minsk-Brest So a Kazan Dresden Minsk Minsk Minsk Country Czechoslovakia USSR Bulgaria USSR GDR USSR USSR USSR Processor Speed 1 000 operations 35 160 650 450 1 000 2 000 3 000 second Fixed add time as 5-13 4 5 07-085 0 6-2 7 0 25-0 30 1 0 12 Fixed multiply time ps 95-220 23 2 8-3 4 3 4-5 2 1 5-1 8 a 0 6 Floating point add 50 0 95 0 1 9 1 6 0 80 a 0 24 time us Floating point multiply 9 7 19 8 2 8 2 7 2 3 a 0 30 time us Main memory Capacity Mbytes 0 1-0 5 0 25-1 1-4 0 25-4 0 5-8 1-8 2-16 Cycle time 1 250 800 840 1 140 800 a 8 Access time us870 Bytes fetched per cycle Microprogram control memory Capacity Kbytes a 48RW 7R0 8 48 a a IRW Cycle time us 380 200 120-380 135 a a 3 Access time usLength of word accessed bytes Cache scratch pad memory Capacity Kbytes 8 8 a 32 Cycle time us 120 135 a 3 Access time M 72 65 a 8 Length of word 8 8 a a accessed bytes Channels Maximum number Total transfer rate a 1 200 5 000 6 000 9 000 a 15 000 kbytes s Selector channels Maximum number 1 4 5 4 6 a 16 Transfer rate 33 740 1 500 1 500 1 300 a 1 500 kbytes s Byte-multiplex channels Maximum number Transfer rate 24 40-280 40-160 40-1 500 110-670 a 10- kbytes s 15 Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Table 3 Technical Speci cations for Soviet Ryad-2 Mainframe Computers continued Maia ES-1025 ES-1035 133-1045 153-1055 ES-1060 ES-1061 ES-1065 7 Blocl-ilnultiplex channels 7 Maximum number 7 X7 77 777767777777 WW 377777777 Transfer rate 1 500 a a 3 000 kbytes S 7 i 7777 7 Class per State Standard ll Ill 11 IV GOST 16325-76 A Data not available On these models the block-multiplex channel can be operated as a selector channel Speed varies depending on numbers and types of Operational channels in system us microsecond 10' second ns nanosecond 10 second Byte 8 bits 8 binary digits Kbyte 1 024 bytes kbyte 000 bytes Mbyte 1 048 576 bytes equipment not available on model RW read write R0 read only an operating system for Elbrus-1 computers having more than two processors By analogy the rst US commercial supercomputer the Cray-1 initially was delivered in 1976 with only the most primitive soft- ware support for system management Table 4 lists four Elbrus con gurations identi ed as standard in a Soviet brochure All of the through put values are quite Optimistic and the maximum main memory capacity is modest relative to US state of the art On the basis of comments by Soviet scientists and the size of the Elbrus machine we estimate that between ve and 10 Elbrus computers have been built each year since 1979 Cray Research Corporation in the United States delivered an average of seven Cray su ercom uters each year between 1976 and 1984i connecting the Elbrus computer with the Soviet military there would be two versions of Elbrus one for civilian use and one for the militarj lthe only difference between these two computers would be the method of testing Ballistic missile defense is an Secret Note Speci cations for Ryad computers vary sometimes greatly in CEMA literature None of the values in this table have been con rmed by direct access to a Ryad-Z computer and we believe that they tend to be overly optimistic Ryad-Z systems introduced in the late 19705 had ferrite-core main memories these were upgrad- ed to semiconductor memories in the early 1980s Operational parameters for semiconductor devices are used in this table The performance of the ES-1065 is based upon a uniprocessor con guration The ES-1026 4056 and -1061 are modernized Ryad-2 versions of the ES-1025 -1055M and -1060 respectively 25X1 application frequently cited by emigres for the Elbrus computer It was rumored in Soviet scienti c circles around 1978 that an Elbrus was to be installed on an aircraft carrier 25X1 25X1 A new model Elbrus-2 has been under development at According to Soviet literature this ma- chine will exceed 100 million Operations per second Elbrus-2 was mentioned as early as 1977 but we suspect that Burtsev has been busy debugging Elbrus- 1 and is still trying to perfect an Elbrus-2 prototype A Soviet scientist stated in September 1983 that no Elbrus-2 machines had been produced as of that date If Elbrus-2 is realized it will be we expect the Soviets rst entry into the supercomputer realm 5 NF 25X1 M-IO Computer In May 1979 M A Kartsev published a description of a multiprocessor system called the M- 10 that he had designed at the Institute of Electronic 25X1 25X1 25X1 25X1 16 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Figure 13 IBM System Software in Use in CEMA Countries Release dates of 1964 1961 IBM software stem 360 angouncement CTSS 1 1966 Batch Single task 05 360 PCP 1967 Spooling Multiprogramming I968 Multitasking 1969 1970 1971 Teleprocessing Timesharing 1972 Virtual storage Virtual machines 1973 1974 Parallel operations R2 MVS 1975 1976 1977 1978 Program products Program producta Program product Program product System product I 1979 High-performance Option 1980 System product V1 1981 1982 1983 Extended V2 architecture 1 1984 Extended virtual machines - Systems believed to be in use a may also be in use in CEMA countries in CEMA countries 17 Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Figure 14 Soviet EIbrus-l Computer Complex Circa Table 4 single complex Another open source states that ad eri heral ui ment can be used Standard boyiet hlbrus l With the M-tt According to Kartsev this 32-bits onhgurations word computer has an avera eed of over 5 million operations per second 25X1 Number of I 4 10 'I hmughpui in Mops LS 3 0 55 130 Kartsev described the control unit of the as 57 52 MM 41 08 being able to dynamically adapt the number of pro- cessors under program control as a function of the blocks 2 4 word length This approach is similar to a technique Memory L mnmummrs I 3 4 8 used in the US supercomputer which made Input output I i 2 4 it possible either to execute with 64 processors on word of 64 bits or to use 128 processors on 32 2 bit words Having these alternatives is useful in processors I applications that are to parallel algor and PI 3 central processing unithave variable numerical range requirements Mops millions of operations per second - 8 192 bits '1 Although the new Ryad-Z PIS-1065 computer may be faster the WHO may have been the most powerful 25x1 computer available in the Soviet Union during the late 1970s 25X1 onipiitcrs lliUM in Moscow said that up to seven M-lt computers can be joined together in a In a multiprocessor system the processors Operate in a Iockstep manner usually timed to a worst-case operation This procedure greatly reduces the management overhead associated with systems but can lead to inef ciencies for very short Secret 1 8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 The number of experienced Soviet software program- Wthough Kartsev tiled in April 1983 we suspect that the design philosophy of this domineering personality is well entrenched at the institute that he directed We expect that improve- ments and variations on the basic M-IO architecture will continue through the 1980s New Activity ire P Velikhov vice president of the USSR Academy of Sciences stated in late 1983 that he was the focal point for an accelerated program on the deve10pment of supercom- puters This pronouncement is interesting because Burtsev s institute and the Elbrus program are under the control of the USSR Academy of Sciences Until now Burtsev seems to have had an autonomous reign in pursuit of his high-performance Elbrus computer Many sectors of Soviet society eSpecially the military are known to be anxious for a supercomputer @ Velikhov s appointment as local pomt tor managing a supercomputer program may be the rst step in opening up the development of these machines to other or anizations within the Software We estimate that in general the Soviets are ve to 10 years behind the United States in the implementation of large multiuser and real-time software systems as well as in - chniques for various industries There are numerous causes that contribute to the Soviet software lag Some of the problems frequently cited by Soviets with access to programmers in the USSR are 0 The Soviet hardware lag - A belated appreciation of and belated emphasis on software 0 A poor or nonexistent vendor-user feedback loop in the USSR 0 Low pay for programmers relative to other technical personnel - Poor software development tools - A Soviet preoccupation with meeting quotas usu- ally at the expense of quality control - Duplication of work due to the excessive compart mentalization of software routines written at many facilities 19 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 25X1 25X1 25X1 mers who also are cleared for classi ed projects may still be insuf cient thus probably leavin man mili- tary projects not completed on Software is one area where technology transfer from the West can help the Soviets close speci c gaps with quantum jumps Software programs are conveniently stored on relatively small media such as diskpacks oppy disks or magnetic tapesmor on solid state memory devices which are even smaller It is not just classi ed military software that is of interest to the Soviets they also can use many commercial software programs to improve their industrial base or to imple- ment military Programs are available from thousands of commercial outlets in the non- Communist world Thus the United States has a major technology transfer problem If the Soviets were able to obtain a microprocessor from the United States a team of engineers and technicians would need from one to four years to reverse engineer the device However if the Soviets obtained just one c0py of a software program it would be a minor project for even a novice to turn out copies of this program immediately With the increasing number of comput- ers available to the Soviets that are functional equiva- lents of Western systems we can expect the Soviets to continue and probably to increase their legal and illegal acquisition of Western software system 25X1 25X1 25X1 20M 25X1 25X1 Peripherals 25X1 Magnetic Disks The Soviets are about 10 years behind the United States in high-performance magnetic disk technology This is one of their most serious computer hardware de ciencies and it is limiting the performance of-their computer systems in many applications 25X1 Figure 15 illustrates the signi cant lead that the United States has in magnetic disk devices The Soviets have announced their own ZOO-Mbyte disk drive four years after the Bulgari- ans began low-volume production of comparable equipment ES-5067 and about 10 years after the 25X1 Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secre Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Figure 15 Magnetic Disk Technology United States Versus USSR 1965-88 Capacity in megabytes per drive US Bulgaria USSR 10 000 3380-2 I 3380 3375 000 9 years D 5065 l0 years 3330 1 1 5063 6 ears 5080 8 years loo 5066 2314 I yEdrs 1965 Year of first delivery 303331 1284 advent of 3330 11 counterpart Bulgaria and into computer systems believe that system perfor- the USSR have however been able to adopt some mance above approximately 5 million operations per mechanical features of disk drives such as voice coil second would be severely hampered without further motors in a very timely fashion advances in disk technology We believe that this Although the low performance of Bulgarian and Soviet disk drives may impose some inconveniences now Western engineers who integrate disk memories Secret 20 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 25X l 25X l Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 DECICI situation is currently slowing or negating many appli time in the United States 256-kbit MBMs were in cations on the Elbrus-l multiprocessor system and production and l-Mbit MBMs had been deveIOped in will also hinder system performance on Ryad comput- the laboratory MBM is an attractive storage technol- ers beyOnd the current top of the line the 138-1065 ogy for military applications because bubble memo- lthe Soviets ries exhibit very good performance in severe environ 25X l are placmg a high pr1or1ty on obtaining know-how for ments presenting extremes in dust shock heat the production of high-performance magnetic disks humidity and radiation Bubble memories are nonvol- probably via Western Eur0pe or Japan We believe atile and have a reputation for high reliability relative that the Soviets also are seriously pursuing optical to magnetic tape and disk equipment which use storage technology to alleviate this bottleneck in electromechanical drives 25Xl system performance 25Xl 25X l Technological and Military Implications Today the Soviets are trailing the United States in all aspects of electronic computer technology If we include the quantity and quality of computer produc- tion the US lead averages several years more than is indicated by just comparing the dates of rst installa- tion of functionally equivalent US and Soviet systems As a result of the more advanced microelectronic technology and computer packaging techniques in the United States as well as the poor state of the art in Soviet peripheral equipment we expect the US lead to 25X1 increase by one to three years in all ma'or electronic computer technologies by 1986 25X'l 25X l It is dif cult to assess accurately the impact of the Magnetic Tapes Soviets lag in computer technoloszv on their develon- According to Open literature the ment of military systems i 25x1 state of the art in magnetic tape drives in CEMA i It is rare 25X1 countries is 1 600-bits-per-inch bpi density with a lwhen computer 25x1 data transfer rate of 189 kilobytes second IBM rst technology IS hinderlng the development of a speci c released comparable equipment in 1966 an 18-year military program i 25x1 differential A density of 6 250 bpi at 1 25 mega- lHowever at the high- 25X l bytes second has been used in the United States since pertormance end of computer technology at least we 1973 In March 1984 IBM announced its new high- can Speculate with reasonable con dence that mili- performance magnetic tape drive Model 3480 sched- tary systems requiring high-throughput computers uled for delivery in 1985 The new 3480 will have a have been negated delayed or reduced in capability linear density of approximately 19 000 bpi and a data because of the Soviets de ciency in this area The transfer rate of 3 0 megabytes per second impact would have been serious on large high-speed 25X l computational problems such as ballistic missile de- Magnetic Bubbles fense and on high-volume high-speed data transfer The Soviet Union possibly had a prototype 64-kbit 3 applications such as real-time command control and magnetic bubble memory MBM by 1980 and a 92- communications systems requiring large data bases kbit prototype by 1981 By comparison at the same MBM size has had a confusing evolution Early MBM products used bit quite loosely generally rounding a number to the closest 1 000 bits Later products reverted to the normal powers-of Z sizing for memories In this MBM section we use 1k as ap roxi- mately equal to 1 000 1K 1 024 and 1M 1 048 576 25x1 2 1 Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret The Soviet scienti c community has frequently ex- pressed the opinion that the lack of a supercomputer is hampering many projects such as in computa tional physics and chemistrS Apart from large scienti c computers the impact on military systems of the Soviet lag in computer tech- nology is more dif cult to judge here the lack of information is more of a barrier One may argue that the traditionally conservative design philosophy asso- ciated with Soviet military systems has not stressed their computer technology Another possibility is that system requirements were kept modest in line with the Soviets knowledge of the limitations of their comput ers The truth is probably a mixture of both hypotheses The Soviets tend to have less reliable computer sys- tems than the United States or Japan because Soviet microelectronic components are less reliable and Sovi- et quality control is generally weaker An example of how this reliability can affect a critical system is ICBM design The Soviets use triply redundant com- puters on board their Although individual computers have failed during ight tests there have been no mission test failures to date attributed to the onboard computer complex By contrast the United States has used a single computer for navigation guidance and control functions on board its Minute- man and MX missiles Ironically today US contrac- tors are reportedly going to redundant computer systems in many designs for increased reliability For example the F-16 ight control system and the navigation system on the Navstar satellite will both have triply redundant processors on board The Soviets understand and appreciate the potential impact of high technology on weapon systems Auto mation in the Soviet military sector will grow steadily and become an integral part of new system designs We suspect that the Soviets during the 19805 are following the US approach from the 19703 that is expanding the use of mil-spec minicomputers for tactical military applications while continuing to decrease reliance on special-purpose computers As the reliability of Soviet microprocessors in severe environments improves they will become more preva- lent in Soviet tactical systems Although automation Secret in the Soviet military is expected to increase through out the 19805 the rate of increase is expected to be slower than in the United States especially for mobile tactical systems Over the next three years we expect that the Soviets - Will improve the quantity and quality of their semiconductor memory devices and microprocessors - Will phase in the production of Ryad-3 mainframes - Probably will build their rst 32-bit minicomputer - Probably will build their rst supercomputer - Will fall further behind in all areas fcomputer technology 25X1 25X1 25X1 25X1 22 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8 Secret Secret Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010 11 29 CIA-RDP86R00995R000501130001-8                     National Security Archive    Suite 701  Gelman Library  The George Washington University    2130 H Street  NW  Washington  D C  20037    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