Electronics industry in East Germany

East Germany was one of the leading computer producers in the Eastern Bloc as purchases of higher technologies from the West were under various embargoes.

A program of illegal purchases, copying and reverse engineering of Western examples was established, after which GDR sold these computers to COMECON countries.

[1] In the years just before German Reunification, the electronics industry was structured into business conglomerates called Kombinate (combine).

With the exception of Carl Zeiss and Robotron, most components and devices were sold under the common trademark RFT (from Rundfunk- und Fernmelde-Technik).

After reunification Dresden formed the nucleus for the modern day largest unified German cluster in semiconductor technologies; Silicon Saxony, with 40,000 employees.

U61000 : the first 1-Mbit memory chip produced by the GDR
Presenting the first 1Mb microchip to Erich Honecker , September 12, 1988
An East German semiconductor factory around 1989.