JSC Sitronics, a Russian provider of telecommunications and consumer equipment, has said it has started a project to develop chip manufacturing at the 65-nm to 45-nm nodes on 300-mm diameter wafers, according to a CNews report. Sitronics is the owner of chip maker JSC Mikron (Zelenograd, Russia).

The 45/300 project was approved recently by the Investment Committee at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and recommended to be submitted to the government, according to the report. The report estimated that Sitronic would have to spend more than 58 billion rubles (about $2.3 billion) on building a production facility.

The project was discussed at an investment forum ‘Sochi-2007’ and Sitronics plans to start construction of a 300-mm wafer fab in January 2008, the report said. Chip production would then begin in October 2009. Sitronics proposed that the wafer fab should belong to a joint venture owned 51 percent by Sitronics and 49 percent by the Russian government, the report said.

However, there was no discussion of how the process technology would be sourced.

Meanwhile Mikron is pushing ahead with its cooperation with STMicroelectronics NV and is in the process of qualifying a 180-nm CMOS process. This is due to be done by the end of 2007 with mass production beginning in 2008.