[smaddox]

If I remember correctly, the silicon used to manufacture transistor-grade wafers is purified to roughly 10 impurities for every billion silicon atoms. Less pure starting stock might increase the cost of getting there, but probably not by too much.

[GhettoComputers]

No, it is not possible. Refinement isn't changing to lower quality, if that was true then every enemy of the US would be refining their own materials. It is in everyone's interest not to rely on a single place for every microchip materials, but the fact that is hasn't happened, and if it didn't incraes the cost by much why hasn't it happened with the US's global enemies? The USSR was never able to gain eqivalence even with the same blueprints and they were not able to be made in bulk.

>Soviet computer software and hardware designs were often on par with Western ones, but the country's persistent inability to improve manufacturing quality meant that it could not make practical use of theoretical advances. *Quality control*, in particular, was a major weakness of the Soviet computing industry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_in_the_So...