Relocation of electronics in Shenzhen. Is it worth it to go that far?

After reading the article “Moving an electronics engineer to Shenzhen,” in which the author in colors talked about the advantages of electronic design in China, he also decided to uncover the keyboard. I want to talk about a unique place for Russia, where I have been freelancing in the same field for more than five years, which in some cases can be a serious competitor to the Middle Kingdom.

This city Zelenograd

To better understand the advantages of the city as the abode of an electronic freelancer, you need to do a little history.

Zelenograd is a young city whose birth date is considered to be 1958, its uniqueness begins with its status.
On the one hand, it is a separate city located on the 37th kilometer of the Leningrad highway, on the other - this is a district of the city of Moscow! During the time of Developed Socialism, he was the flagship of the electronic industry of the Soviet Union. The city included the full cycle of development and production of electronic equipment, starting from the watch and ending with a microcomputer of the type DVK, and of course, products for the military-industrial complex and space.
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Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology trained personnel. Numerous factories and plants were engaged in the production of silicon, semiconductor crystals, enclosure of circuits, the production of printed circuit boards, the assembly of finished products. Of course, all this would not be possible without numerous development departments. In order to attract the best personnel from all over the country, the city was granted a special status - Moscow residence permit and Moscow supply.



Unfortunately, most of this utopia collapsed with the collapse of the USSR, unable to withstand the competition of global markets, but part of the infrastructure, and most importantly, personnel, still remained. In addition, until now the financing of public utilities is carried out according to Moscow standards, which are several times higher than Moscow region. Therefore, even today, living in this city, it is most convenient to work in the development of electronics in Russia. Compared to China, there are both pros and cons. What and for whom it will outweigh is up to you.



Leningrad railway city is divided into two parts. The “new city” is a typical sleeping area and does not deserve attention, all objects of interest to the developer are very compactly located on a small patch of the “old city”.

On a small patch of several square kilometers everything necessary for the development and production of pilot batches of electronic products was collected.

Within the above photo, everything that a freelancer needs for work and life is located. Two companies manufacturers of boards and contract assembly, machining, firms selling electronic components, a pilot plant where you can make custom-made chips of your own design (albeit with a low degree of integration), training center at MIET, free space for offices, branches of several banks , palace of culture, two stadiums. The photo was taken a few years ago, so today there is a cultural park, a dining room, a lot of cafes and a restaurant, a beach, barbecue grounds, and now the water park is being completed. On the right you can see the edge of the housing estate, where you can rent an apartment cheaply by Moscow standards.

Now about everything in more detail.

Infrastructure

Manufacturers of printed circuit boards are represented by two companies - “Resonit” and “Taberu”. At first glance, their prices are close, but the first one has more transparent pricing and complex multi-layer boards will cost less. The minimum urgent order for simple double-layer masked boards will cost 1,650 rubles for training + 180 rubles for each square decimeter of the board area. Production time is three days. It is possible and faster, but more expensive. Multilayers will cost 2800 + 410 rubles per decimeter with a production time of a week. Perhaps the urgent manufacture of boards of microwave material, pricing is more difficult, because it is tied to the size of the workpiece. They also do around the week.
Installation of boards can be carried out in the same firms, if necessary, purchasing components, but it takes, as a rule, a month or more, so it is better to purchase the key components yourself. In addition, you can use the services of the contract manufacturer Telerem, which is able to produce a full cycle of manufacturing products, ranging from printed circuit boards and ending with assembly and testing. Unlike many others, it even takes on individual samples and small experimental batches. There are also smaller offices specializing in the installation of boards and especially sneaky customers (like me) can agree in them directly with the performers, then in cash, it is really possible to solder very complex fees for three, or even two days.

Unfortunately, there are no radio shops in Zelenograd itself, however, common electronic components, all the necessary equipment for installation, installation products and enclosures can be bought in the pavilions of the Mitinsky radio market at quite reasonable prices. It can be reached by Pyatnitsky highway by bus in 30 minutes in the absence of traffic jams. Average journey time is 40 minutes.



The range is not as rich as in the Chinese markets, but much can be found.

Many firms selling electronic components, such as ChipDip and Platan, deliver goods from their online stores to the Mitinsky radio market. Passive SMD components - resistors, capacitors, inductors, connectors and semiconductors of wide application can be purchased from the company SMP, they carry out free delivery of their goods to the point of issue in Zelenograd a couple of times a week. If you need exotic, which in Russia carry only on order, you can use the services of Zelenograd company "Micro EM". Most orders can be received within a month. If you are too lazy to go to Moscow at MikroEm once more, you can also order the entire range of components from the Compel company, which has a very wide warehouse stock and receive them within a week.

Next to the board manufacturers, there are several offices specializing in machining. They can quickly and relatively inexpensively manufacture milled parts from various materials and planar parts from metal and plastic. If something really exotic is needed from plastic, there is a 3D printing company. By the way, with machining in small quantities, things in China are perhaps even worse than ours.

However, a person is not only alive with work, sometimes it is necessary to break away from the computer and put the soldering iron aside.

Ecology

Ecology is today a very important component of the quality of life, so I spent a lot of time in this post. Those who are going to repeat my feat and take up contract development in Zelenograd, I advise you to settle in the old town. Firstly, everything you need will be literally at hand, and secondly, according to legend, it was designed by American architects according to the patterns of their university cities. The city is divided into neighborhoods, which are divided by numerous forest parks. One of the largest and most comfortable is located in the very center of the city. It is very pleasant to run in it at any time of the year, since the asphalt roads are lit and regularly cleaned from snow in winter. There are a lot of different forest birds, there are squirrels and hedgehogs.



At your service in the old town are three stadiums, tennis courts, a skate park, playgrounds in courtyards and forest parks, mini-football grounds with a special coating, fitness centers, swimming pools, an ice palace, dog walking areas, a swimming pool, specially equipped playgrounds. kebabs. It is very convenient to ride a bike and skate along wide roads. In the vicinity of the city through the forest in winter, many trails are laid. Traffic jams are rare. There is a lake with a fountain and swans.



Due to the fact that most of the hazardous production stopped, the air is very clean, over the past 15 years I have only been able to observe once - in 2010, during the period of extreme heat. Then peatlands burned in Tver and the smoke from them reached Zelenograd, however, then all of Moscow was filled with them.

Transport accessibility

The city is connected to Moscow by the Leningrad and Pyatnitskoe highways. Since it is considered a part of Moscow, the price of numerous bus express trains is very democratic, although it is possible to stand in a traffic jam for a long time during rush hours. However, even at rush hours, Moscow can be reached by train in 45-55 minutes, and on the express train another 10 minutes faster. Soon they will launch a paid double of the Leningradskoye highway and the situation on the roads should improve significantly. Not far from the city is Sheremetyevo Airport. To get to him by taxi costs 600-700 rubles.

Housing

Zelenograd has recently been very intensively built and landscaped. However, the residents of Moscow settled in the microdistricts of the new city, and in the old city they built new houses on the site of demolished five-story buildings, therefore there are very few commercial new buildings in the city, and the price of housing is very high and comparable to Moscow.



In the rental market, everything is much better. The monthly cost of renting a room is from 12,000 rubles, decent odnushki from 20 thousand rubles, one-room apartments from 25 thousand rubles. Shabby property can be rented for a couple of thousand less. The cost of hotel rooms from 2000 rubles per day. If necessary, you can remove inexpensive office space and production needs. The price starts from 500 rub / sq m per month.

So try to summarize

The main thing - everything you need is at hand.

You can quickly make printed circuit boards of almost any complexity at a price twice as high as in China.

If you avoid serious exotic, then you can quickly buy electronic components. The retail cost, of course, will also be higher by 50 percent, but for development and pilot lots this does not matter much.

A plus is also the Russian-speaking environment and native mentality. You can save a lot of money on a translator and middlemen.

Accommodation is three times more expensive than the cheapest Chinese offers, but on the other hand, if you believe a comrade who went to China, then for a decent apartment near the factory and the view of the sea there will also have to pay an amount equivalent to 25,000 rubles. Here you can rent a apartment within walking distance from the offices of all the companies you need and 500 meters from a large forest park.

Most of the clients in Russia are concentrated in Moscow and are also within reach. The proximity, perhaps, of the best airport in Russia today is good.

In the bottom line, we get the following: in terms of convenience and time spent on the development and production of the prototype, Zelenograd is not much worse than China, if not to use exotic components. The cost of manufacturing and mounting boards is one and a half to two times higher than in China, but there is no need to spend so much effort on quality control.

Ecology and the possibility of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, the familiar climate is exactly in favor of Zelenograd, except that there is no sea and mountains nearby.
The last thing to add is Zelenograd has the status of a special economic zone, therefore, if the electronics engineer plans to open his own firm, he can count on some benefits.

So, if you are able to provide yourself with orders at the expense of Russian clients (and now problems are brewing with this), then the development and prototyping stage, in my opinion, is more pleasant to perform in Zelenograd. Mass production, of course, is more profitable in China, although here it must be considered. If you are planning to release a limited batch of products with high added value, then manufacturing in Russia may be more profitable. In China, of course, they will make it faster and cheaper, but the time and money spent on quality control, transportation and customs clearance may exceed the benefits.

If you are aiming at international markets or large batches of devices, China definitely benefits, especially since in Russia today the tendency to creep into self-isolation is progressing very quickly.

I plan to tell you about the search for freelancer-electronic orders for my own experience and trends in recent years in this area in the next article.