The chip challenge: Keeping Western semiconductors out of Russian weapons

Oakland, California – When Silicon Valley chipmaker Marvell learned that one of its chips was found in a Russian surveillance drone recovered in 2016, it set out to investigate how that came to be. The chip, which costs less than $2, was shipped in 2009 to a distributor in Asia, which sold it to another broker in Asia, which later went out of business. "We couldn't trace it any further," Marvell Technology Group Chief Operations Officer Chris Koopmans said in a recent interview. Years later, it reappeared in the drone recovered in Lithuania. Marvell's experience is one of myriad examples of how chipmakers lack ability to track where many of their lower-end products end up, executives and experts said.