Kombinat Mikroelektronik Erfurt

VEB Kombinat Mikroelektronik Erfurt was an important manufacturer of active electronic components in East Germany. It should not be confused with the more well-known VEB Kombinat Robotron Dresden which used integrated circuits from Kombinat Mikroelektronik in its computers. The trademark RFT was used for components from Kombinat Mikroelektronik, as well as for most electronic products from East Germany .

The Kombinat Mikroelektronik Erfurt was formed in 1978 when the VVB Bauelemente und Vakuumtechnik was split into VEB Kombinat Elektronische Bauelemente Teltow for passive electronic components and VEB Kombinat Mikroelektronik Erfurt for active electronic components. However, the history of many of the individual plants reaches back further, in some cases to before the Second World War. In 1971 the first integrated circuits had been manufactured — the D100C by Halbleiterwerk Frankfurt and the U101D by Funkwerk Erfurt. To put this into perspective, the first TTL circuits went into production in the US 10 years and at Siemens in West Germany 5 years before East Germany. The first microprocessor, the U808D, followed in 1978, 6 years after the Intel 8008 that the U808 was cloned from. Further milestones were the U880 in 1980 and the first 16-bit microprocessor U8000 in 1984. The ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany had identified the development of the microelectronics sector as a primary goal. Huge sums were spent in order to catch up to the West — between 1986 and 1990 about 7% of the country-wide industry investment. However, this effort was hampered by several factors: the general inefficiency of the planned economy, insufficient cooperation with other Comecon countries, and western CoCom export restrictions that prevented the importation of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Nonetheless, the development program achieved samples of a 1Mbit dRAM chip in 1988 and a 32-bit processor in 1989. Mikroelektronik "Karl Marx" Erfurt achieved a feature size of 3 µm on 4-inch wafers in 1984 , 2.5 µm in 1988 , and 1.5 µm on 5-inch wafers in 1990 . In 1989, Halbleiterwerk Frankfurt produced 110 million integrated circuits and Mikroelektronik "Karl Marx" Erfurt produced 35 million.

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