Last October, the US Department of Commerce imposed semiconductor restrictions on Chinese imports of equipment for processes of 18 nm and below. SK hynix's Wuxi fab was granted a one-year production license, but geopolitical risks and weak demand prompted the company to reduce wafer starts by about 30% per month in 2Q23, according to TrendForce's latest research.

TrendForce reports that SK hynix had planned to transition its Wuxi fab's mainstream process from 1Y nm to 1Z nm, decreasing the output of legacy processes. However, due to limitations imposed by the US ban, the company instead opted to increase the share of its 21 nm production lines, focus-ing on DDR3 and DDR4 4Gb products. SK hynix's long-term strategy involves shifting its capacity expansion back to South Korea, while the Wuxi fab caters to domestic demand in China and the legacy-process consumer DRAM market.

Crucial's T700 PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD series has been previewed a couple of times, showing some impressive sequential read and write performance, and now, Crucial has announced that it is available for pre-order, directly from Crucial's own store. The release date is set for May 30th.

In case you missed it earlier, the Crucial T700 PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD offers sequential performance of up to 12,400 MB/s for read and up to 11,800 MB/s for write (11,700 MB/s and 9,500 MB/s for the 1 TB version). Available in 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacities, and with or without the heatsink, the Crucial T700 uses Micron 232-layer TLC NAND paired up with Phison's E26 controller. The endurance rating (TBW) for the Crucial T700 SSD series is set at 600 TB for the 1 TB version, 1200 TB for the 2 TB version, and 2400 TB for the 4 TB version, and it is backed by a 5-year limited warranty.

Yesterday SK Hynix reported its Q1 2023 results and to say that they were abysmal is being kind, as the company reported a 3.4 trillion won operating loss, or just over US$2.5 billion. That's no small hit to take for any company, especially when it's only the performance for a single quarter. However, SK Hynix is apparently trying to see its situation from a positive perspective and believes that the memory chip market will rebound in the second half of this year. The positive outlook isn't just based on what SK Hynix believes though, as various analysts and securities companies believe in an upswing in the second half of the year.

That said, Micron, one of SK Hynix main competitors, has a more drab outlook for the remainder of 2023 and is expecting a tough year ahead. SK Hynix is expecting production cuts by itself, Micron and Samsung to start to take effect sometime in the second quarter this year, which should see inventory drop to more normal levels for all three companies. SK Hynix is also expecting to see a higher demand for DDR5 DRAM later this year, especially in the mobile and server market space. Finally, SK Hynix is hoping that its customers will buy higher density memory products this year, replacing older, lower density solutions, be that DRAM or NAND flash related. SK Hynix is expecting to launch its Gen 5 10 nm DRAM and 238-layer NAND sometime next year, which the company is also hoping will bring more income to its coffers, but the company still has to make it through the rest of 2023 first.

Micron Technology is setting up a manufacturing facility in India at an investment of $1 billion, with the Indian Government set to clear certain approvals that incentivize its operations in the country. The plant will deal with chip packaging—the process of encasing bumped silicon chips into fiberglass or ceramic substrates, and wiring them out into pins or balls that get soldered onto PCBs. Besides packaging, the facility will be involved in testing, binning, marking, and logistical packaging of finished chips (into reels or trays). The plant could deal with the spectrum of Micron products spanning NAND flash, and various generation DRAM. The new Indian facility will join 11 manufacturing sites Micron has either operational or under-development, in countries such as Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, and China, besides the company's main home turf of the U.S.

TrendForce reports that mass production of new server platforms—such as Intel Sapphire Rapids and AMD Genoa—is imminent. However, recent market reports have indicated a PMIC compatibility issue for server DDR5 RDIMMs; DRAM suppliers and PMIC vendors are working to address the problem. TrendForce believes this will have two effects: First, DRAM suppliers will temporarily procure more PMICs from Monolithic Power Systems (MPS), which supplies PMICs without any issues. Second, supply will inevitably be affected in the short term as current DDR5 server DRAM production still uses older processes, which will lead to a convergence in the price decline of DDR5 server DRAM in 2Q23—from the previously estimated 15~20% to 13~18%.

As previously mentioned, PMIC issues and the production process relying on older processes are all having a short-term impact on the supply of DDR5 server DRAM. SK hynix has gradually ramped up production and sales of 1α-nm, which, unlike 1y-nm, has yet to be fully verified by consumers. Current production processes are still being dominated by Samsung and SK hynix's 1y-nm and Micron's 1z-nm; 1α and 1β-nm production is projected to increase in 2H23.

According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP) sources, Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC) has been plotting to manufacture its advanced 3D NAND flash using locally sourced equipment. As the source notes, YMTC has placed big orders from local equipment makers in a secret project codenamed Wudangshan, named after the Taoist mountain in the company's home province of Hubei. Last year, YTMC announced significant progress towards creating 200+ layer 3D NAND flash before other 3D NAND makers like Micron and SK Hynix. Called X3-9070, the chip is a 232-layer 3D NAND based on the company's advanced Xtacking 3.0 architecture.

As the SCMP finds, YTMC has placed big orders at Beijing-based Naura Technology Group, maker of etching tools and competitor to Lam Research, to manufacture its advanced flash memory. Additionally, YTMC has reportedly asked all its tool suppliers to remove all logos and other marks from equipment to avoid additional US sanctions holding the development back. This significant order block comes after the state invested 7 billion US Dollars into YTMC to boost its production capacity, and we see the company utilizing those resources right away. However, few industry analysts have identified a few "choke points" in YTMC's path to independent manufacturing, as there are still no viable domestic alternatives to US-based tool makers in areas such as metrology tools, where KLA is the dominant player, and lithography tools, where ASML, Nikon, and Canon, are noteworthy. The Wuhan-based Wudangshan project remains secret about dealing with those choke points in the future.

Earlier this month, it was reported that the Chinese Government could retaliate to the U.S. ban on YMTC by banning Idaho-based Micron Technology from selling memory products to Chinese firms—something that can severely hit Micron's bottom-line if you consider the various smartphone brands and PC OEMs based out of China, not to mention foreign companies that manufacture the entire spectrum of consumer electronics in China.

While Beijing is still making up its mind on whether go ahead with this ban, Washington threw a wrench in the works, by "urging" South Korean memory giants Samsung and SK Hynix not to fill the shortfall in supply left by a ban on Micron. It stands to reason that a similar request has been made with Kioxia, which is majority-owned by Bain Capital. Therefore, if China were to ban Micron, it would have to do so only after scaling up production at YMTC to make up for the supply, or end up with a chip shortage that can hurt Chinese ICT and PC firms in the immediate aftermath of the ban.

A strong growth in AI server shipments has driven demand for high bandwidth memory (HBM). TrendForce reports that the top three HBM suppliers in 2022 were SK hynix, Samsung, and Micron, with 50%, 40%, and 10% market share, respectively. Furthermore, the specifications of high-end AI GPUs designed for deep learning have led to HBM product iteration. To prepare for the launch of NVIDIA H100 and AMD MI300 in 2H23, all three major suppliers are planning for the mass production of HBM3 products. At present, SK hynix is the only supplier that mass produces HBM3 products, and as a result, is projected to increase its market share to 53% as more customers adopt HBM3. Samsung and Micron are expected to start mass production sometime towards the end of this year or early 2024, with HBM market shares of 38% and 9%, respectively.

AI server shipment volume expected to increase by 15.4% in 2023
NVIDIA's DM/ML AI servers are equipped with an average of four or eight high-end graphics cards and two mainstream x86 server CPUs. These servers are primarily used by top US cloud services providers such as Google, AWS, Meta, and Microsoft. TrendForce analysis indicates that the shipment volume of servers with high-end GPGPUs is expected to increase by around 9% in 2022, with approximately 80% of these shipments concentrated in eight major cloud service providers in China and the US. Looking ahead to 2023, Microsoft, Meta, Baidu, and ByteDance will launch generative AI products and services, further boosting AI server shipments. It is estimated that the shipment volume of AI servers will increase by 15.4% this year, and a 12.2% CAGR for AI server shipments is projected from 2023 to 2027.

Crucial T700 marks the brand's return to the high-end SSD segment after years of catering to the mainstream segment with well-priced drives that the company can move in high volumes. The company had retired its Ballistix brand to mark its withdrawal from the high-end. The drive combines Micron's 232-layer 3D TLC NAND flash with a Phison E26-series controller and LPDDR4-based DRAM cache, and takes advantage of the PCI-Express 5.0 x4 host interface, with NVMe. A small section of the tech press was sampled with these drives and permitted to do performance previews.

Every SSD manufacturer's favorite benchmark, CrystalDiskMark (CDM), shows the drive clock 12.4 GB/s sequential reads (1 MB, QD8), along with 9.22 GB/s (1 MB QD1). Sequential writes are as high as 11.87 GB/s (1 MB QD8), and 9.66 GB/s (1 MB QD1). IOMeter testing revealed that the sustained write speeds are rather low, with the T700 holding onto top speeds only up to 25 GB, beyond which write performance falls off a cliff to 3.8 GB/s. Find more such interesting results in the source link below.

TrendForce reports that the US Department of Commerce recently released details regarding its CHIPS and Science Act, which stipulates that beneficiaries of the act will be restricted in their investment activities—for more advanced and mature processes—in China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia for the next ten years. The scope of restrictions in this updated legislation will be far more extensive than the previous export ban, further reducing the willingness of multinational semiconductor companies to invest in China for the next decade.

CHIPS Act will mainly impact TSMC; and as the decoupling of the supply chain continues, VIS and PSMC capture orders rerouted from Chinese foundries
In recent years, the US has banned semiconductor exports and passed the CHIPS Act, all to ensure supply chains decoupling from China. Initially, bans on exports were primarily focused on non-planar transistor architecture (16/14 nm and more advanced processes). However, Japan and the Netherlands have also announced that they intend to join the sanctions, which means key DUV immersion systems, used for producing both sub-16 nm and 40/28 nm mature processes, are likely to be included within the scope of the ban as well. These developments, in conjunction with the CHIPS Act, mean that the expansion of both Chinese foundries and multinational foundries in China will be suppressed to varying degrees—regardless of whether they are advanced or mature processes.

Samsung Electronics will be cutting back on memory chip production, following a worrying drop in its operational profits. Estimates for the first quarter point to a 96% year-on-year decline - the silicon mega-corporation's lowest profit result in 14 years (since the first quarter of 2009). Samsung's operating profits fell to 600 billion won ($456 million) in January to March 2023, from 14 trillion won the previous year. The company has confirmed that a slump in sales is the main cause behind the smaller margins - with a slow global economy and a drop in demand after the chip shortages of 2020 - 2022. Manufacturers of computer and server equipment have reduced expenditure on procurements of RAM and storage solutions.

In a statement released last week, the company confirmed that it was adjusting its manufacturing output in reaction to the drop in demand: "We are lowering the production of memory chips by a meaningful level, especially that of products with supply secured." Industry analysts in South Korean are foreseeing that Samsung's chip business will post heavy losses (into the billions of dollars) during the first three months of 2023. Samsung is expected to publish detailed financial results later this month. The analysts have spotted similar patterns at other South Korea-based memory chip markers - SK Hynix and Micron have recorded heavy financial losses across recent quarters.

The Chinese Government could retaliate to the U.S. ban on YMTC NAND flash memory products by banning American memory maker Micron Technology. This comes as the country initiated a "cybersecurity review" of Micron products to check if they conform to China's network security Laws. These are essentially the same grounds on which the US-FCC banned YMTC, forcing large customers like Apple to cancel orders of YMTC NAND flash products, derailing the company's growth. YMTC's 3D NAND flash products and their development roadmaps can be considered "contemporary," against those of Micron, Kioxia, SK hynix, and Samsung. If banned, China would force Chinese companies, such as Lenovo, HMD International, etc., to remove Micron from their qualified vendor lists.

Galax is joining the PCIe 5.0 SSD crowd with its newest HOF Extreme 50 SSD that has been launched in China, and should come to the rest of the markets soon. The Galax HOF Extreme 50 will be only available in 1 TB and 2 TB capacities, and comes with thick heatsink with active cooling via PWM fan.

As it is the case with all other PCIe 5.0 SSDs currently on the market, the HOF Extreme 50 is based on Phison E26 controller paired up with Micron 232-layer 3D NAND flash and up to 4 GB of LPDDR4 DRAM cache. The Galax HOF Extreme 50 is not the fastest Phison E26-based PCIe 5.0 SSD announced, as Gigabyte Aorus Gen 5 1000, MSI Spatium M570 Pro, and Crucial T700, are coming and reaching up to 12 GB/s (12.4 GB/s for the Crucial T700).

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) today announced results for its second quarter of fiscal 2023, which ended March 2, 2023. "Micron delivered fiscal second quarter revenue within our guidance range in a challenging market environment," said Micron Technology President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra. "Customer inventories are getting better, and we expect gradual improvements to the industry's supply-demand balance. We remain confident in long-term demand and are investing prudently to preserve our technology and product portfolio competitiveness."

Investments in capital expenditures, net were $2.16 billion for the second quarter of 2023, which resulted in adjusted free cash flows of negative $1.81 billion. Micron ended the second quarter of 2023 with cash, marketable investments, and restricted cash of $12.12 billion. Micron's Board of Directors has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.115 per share, payable in cash on April 25, 2023, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on April 10, 2023.

TrendForce reports that several suppliers, such as Micron and SK hynix, have started scaling back DRAM production. The ASP of DRAM plunged 20% in 1Q23, and this price decline is predicted to slow down to 10~15% next quarter. It's uncertain whether or not demand will recover in 2H23. Therefore, the ASP of DRAM has continued to fall as inventory levels are high from the suppliers' side, and prices will only rebound if there is a significant decrease in production.

PC DRAM: Purchase quantity from buyers has fallen drastically over the past three quarters; buyers have around 9~13 weeks of PC DRAM stock remaining. Despite suppliers having already cut production in the PC DRAM segment, DDR4 8 GB module is still likely to fall by more than 10% in 2Q23. There is a possibility that PC OEMs may purchase more DRAM because prices have been down to a relatively low level, but it is still under observation whether or not this can mitigate the inventory overstock situation from the suppliers' side. TrendForce predicts the ASP of PC DRAM will fall between 10~15%.

Semiconductor manufacturers worldwide are forecast to increase 300 mm fab capacity to an all-time high of 9.6 million wafers per month (wpm) in 2026, SEMI announced today in its 300 mm Fab Outlook to 2026 report. After strong growth in 2021 and 2022, the 300 mm capacity expansion is expected to slow this year due to soft demand for memory and logic devices.

"While the pace of the global 300 mm fab capacity expansion is moderating, the industry remains squarely focused on growing capacity to meet robust secular demand for semiconductors," said Ajit Manocha, SEMI President and CEO. "The foundry, memory and power sectors will be major drivers of the new record capacity increase expected in 2026."

Crucial is keen to drum up early interest for an upcoming SSD model, and the Linus Tech Tips team has received and tested a sample unit. The T700 is a PCIe Gen 5 NVMe M.2 SSD storage solution based around a Phison PS5026-E26 controller, which is a very common choice for the current generation of PCIe 5.0 SSDs available on the market. Micron 3D NAND chips look to be present on the T700's PCB, and a Crucial-branded heatsink is mounted to the provided sample unit. It is interesting to note that the uncovered T700 unit bears a striking resemblance to Phison's E26 Engineering Reference sample, although the latter appears to feature SK Hynix memory chips, instead of Micron.

The LTT team posted benchmark results from a Crystal Disk Mark test session, and the T700 achieved maximums of 12.4 GB/s sequential read and 11.9 GB/s write speeds. This represents an almost two fold jump over the performance of Crucial's PCIe 4.0 based P5 Plus SSD, which is a substantial improvement and also very impressive considering the T700's usage of a passive cooling solution.

TrendForce's latest investigations reveal that the global NAND Flash market has been facing a demand headwind since 2H22. In response, the supply chain has been scrambling to clear out inventory, driving down NAND Flash contract prices by 20-25%. Enterprise SSD took the brunt of the fall with prices plummeting 23-28%. Despite manufacturers lowering prices in an attempt to drive up demand, clients are hesitant to purchase more components for fear of overstock. As a result, NAND Flash bit shipments rose by a mere 5.3% as ASP fell 22.8%. Global NAND Flash revenue was reported to be US$10.29 billion in 4Q22—down 25% QoQ.

TrendForce reports that Kioxia and Micron saw both a reduction in production and price in 4Q22. Kioxia's revenue plunged 30.5% due to weak demand from PC and smartphone clients and data centers readjusting their inventory. Micron generated a quarterly revenue of US$1.1 billion—a staggering 34.7% QoQ drop—that has led them to drastically decrease their capacity utilization rate for fabs. Luckily, Micron was able to ship their 232-layer client SSDs in 4Q22 as scheduled, and with the 176-layer QLC enterprise SSD hot on its heels, Micron's bit shipments are predicted to steadily improve in 2023 with their revenue climbing gradually quarter by quarter.

According to TrendForce's latest survey of the server market, many cloud service providers (CSPs) have begun large-scale investments in the kinds of equipment that support artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. This development is in response to the emergence of new applications such as self-driving cars, artificial intelligence of things (AIoT), and edge computing since 2018. TrendForce estimates that in 2022, AI servers that are equipped with general-purpose GPUs (GPGPUs) accounted for almost 1% of annual global server shipments. Moving into 2023, shipments of AI servers are projected to grow by 8% YoY thanks to ChatBot and similar applications generating demand across AI-related fields. Furthermore, shipments of AI servers are forecasted to increase at a CAGR of 10.8% from 2022 to 2026.

According to TrendForce's research, global DRAM revenue fell by 32.5% QoQ to US$12, 281 million for 4Q22. The QoQ decline for 4Q22 is larger than the QoQ decline of 28.8% for 3Q22 and comes close to the QoQ decline of 36% for the final quarter of 2008, when the global economy was in the midst of a major financial crisis. The main cause of the steep revenue drop in 4Q22 was the plummeting overall ASP. DRAM suppliers experienced a rapid accumulation of inventory in 3Q22 due to a freeze in buyers' demand. Subsequently, suppliers were much more energetic in price negotiations for 4Q22 contracts as they were struggling for market share. Among the major categories of DRAM products, server DRAM suffered the sharpest price drop in 4Q22. Contract prices of DDR4 and DDR5 server DRAM products registered QoQ drops of 23~28% and 30~35% respectively.

It appears things are tougher at Micron than expected, as according to Boise State Public Radio, the company is looking at cutting an additional five percent of its workforce. Back in December, Micron announced it was planning to lay off around 10 percent of its global workforce, which at the time sat at around 49,000 employees, but it appears that cut wasn't enough, as company spokesman Tate Tran has confirmed the total headcount reduction is expected to around 15 percent, although that is for the entire year of 2023. This suggests that there might be several stages of layoffs, unless things improve and demand for Micron's products pick up.

The company is also lowering its capex, not just for 2023, but also for 2024, although the company is expecting more on building new fabs. Micron has already reduced its wafer starts, for both DRAM and NAND flash by around 20 percent. This is all taking place while the company is slowing down its tech node transitions and as such, its 1-gamma note will be moved to 2025. This means that Micron will be stuck at 232-layer 3D TLC NAND for longer than initially planned, which could lead to Micron losing market to its competitors, specifically SK Hynix and Samsung in this case, while allowing other competitors to catch up. Micron will reports is financial Q2 '23 results at the end of March, with previous quarters results indicating that Micron is expecting a drop in revenue of up to US$300 million compared to the previous quarter.

Back in December, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra announced that the company would be laying off around 10 percent of its staff and according to the Idaho Statesman, Micron will start at its Boise, Idaho fab. This is despite the company investing US$15 billion in a new leading-edge fab there. That said, it doesn't look like Boise will see any huge cuts in staff, as Micron hasn't issued a WARN notice, which is required when a company is planning on laying off more than 500 people within a 30-day period.

Micron issued a statement earlier this week, saying that its layoffs are a combination of "voluntary attrition, workforce reductions and reduced external hiring," which tends to mean that third party contractors will bear the brunt of the layoffs. Micron is also said to be cutting executive salaries, while also suspending bonuses for employees across the board. Further cost reductions include a halted share buyback program and a reduced production output, the latter due to lower demand. Micron has some 49,000 employees globally, with some 6,000 located in Idaho. The company expects to have completed its job cuts by the end of this month.

In Japan, the first consumer focused PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs have gone on sale and one of these drives has been put through some quick synthetic benchmarks by @momomo_us on Twitter. We're not familiar with the CFD Gaming brand which the drive is sold under, but the CSSD-M2M2TPG5NFZ—as the drive is called—is based on Phison's E26 controller and it's paired with Micron's B58R 3D TLC NAND, suggesting it's based around a reference design from Phison. CFD Gaming offers the drive in 1, 2 and 4 TB sizes and @momomo_us tested the 2 TB version.

Before we go into the performance figures, there's one thing that needs to be highlighted about this drive, it produces a high pitch noise during use, thanks to its tiny 17x17 mm, 21,000 rpm fan from Sunon. @momomo_us provided a video on Twitter which is linked below, so you can hear it in action for yourself. Hopefully this isn't the future of NVMe SSDs, as it's going to put off many potential customers from getting one. @momomo_us only tested the drive with CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4, which shows that sequential write speeds are slightly faster than claimed by CFD Gaming, with the sequential write speeds being bang on the money. For those hoping for higher random performance, things aren't looking so great, as the drive only performs slightly better than the best PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced that its DDR5 server memory portfolio for the data center is now fully validated on the 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor family. Micron DDR5 memory delivers up to twice the memory bandwidth over previous generations, which is essential to fueling the rapid growth of cores in today's data center processors. Transitioning to DDR5 will help alleviate a potential bottleneck for years to come by providing higher bandwidth to unlock more computer power per processor. Micron DDR5, in combination with 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, benefits a wide range of workloads including SPECjbb, which delivers up to 49% performance improvement on benchmarking for Critical-jOPS (Java operations per second) compared to previous generations. In addition to increased memory bandwidth and performance, Micron DDR5 memory is also designed to improve reliability across the data center with features such as on-die Error Correction Code (ODECC) and bounded faults. On-die ECC corrects single-bit errors and detects multi-bit errors.

"The deep collaboration we have established with Intel as a highly valued ecosystem partner, has allowed Micron to remain at the forefront of the industry transition to DDR5," said Raj Hazra, senior vice president and general manager of Micron's Compute and Networking Business Unit. "This work has been pivotal in developing solutions that meet the complex needs and challenges of our data center customers as they convert massive amounts of data into insights."

At the 2023 International CES, we caught a hold of Phison, makes or arguably the most popular SSD controllers, which sprung to prominence on being the first to market with PCIe Gen 4 NVMe controllers, and now hopes to repeat it with PCIe Gen 5. We'd been shown a reference-design Phison E26-powered M.2 SSD, along with some hardware specs of the controller itself. The drive itself isn't much to look at—a standard looking M.2-2280 drive with a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 host interface, and the Phison E26 controller with its shiny IHS being prominently located next to a DDR4 memory chip, and two new-generation Micron Technology 3D NAND flash memory chips.

The Phison E26 controller, bearing the long-form model number PS5026-E26, is an NVMe 2.0 spec client-segment SSD controller. It has been built on the TSMC 12 nm FinFET silicon-fabrication node. The controller features an integrated DRAM controller with support for DDR4 and LPDDR4 memory types for use as DRAM cache. Its main flash interface is 8-channel with 32 NAND chip-enable (CE) lines, support for TLC and QLC NAND flash, a dual-CPU architecture, and hardware-acceleration for AES-256, TCG-Opal, and Pyrite. The controller features Phison's 5th generation LPDC ECC and internal RAID engines. For its reference-design 2 TB TLC-based drive, Phison claims sequential transfer rates of up to 13.5 GB/s reads, with up to 12 GB/s writes. The 4K random-access performance is rated at up to 1.5 million IOPS reads, with up to 2 million IOPS writes.