You're correct. My mother used to work on exactly this, reverse engineering CPUs. They just gave them a part and told them to figure out how it works, and to re

You're correct. My mother used to work on exactly this, reverse engineering CPUs. They just gave them a part and told them to figure out how it works, and to replicate it. It is my understanding that by that point, in the late 80s, most people in her institute were working on copying western tech, not on original IP.