The chip challenge: Keeping Western semiconductors out of Russian weapons

A general view of the video unit motherboard of a Russian-manufactured drone, documented by Conflict Armament Research on May 11, 2019, and obtained by Reuters on March 31, 2022, in Kyiv, Ukraine. CONFLICT ARMAMENT RESEARCH/Handout via Reuters

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - 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.