YMTC X3-6070 3D QLC NAND flash chips are claimed by the company to offer endurance comparable to 3D TLC NAND flash chips from its competitors, ITHome reports. The company launched the new NAND flash chip at an event earlier this week. The X3-6070 is based on YMTC's 3rd Generation Xtracking architecture, and is 128-layer, which may not sound very competitive, given that other brands have moved up to 176-layer, or 232-layer; but YMTC says that the 128-layer design-choice is one of the four key ingredients to achieving high endurance for this chip.

The other three ingredients are innovations in the materials making up the NAND flash physical layer, new error-correction algorithms, and optimizations at the level of the SSD controller. The X3-6070 can sustain 4,000 P/E cycles per cell, YMTC claims, which is in league of contemporary 3D TLC NAND flash chips. It is able to do so, at lower costs from the QLC architecture. Besides the X3-6070, YMTC also launched a few first-party reference design SSDs that fully implement the controller-level optimizations needed for the chip to perform and endure as advertised.

In a bold move to circumvent US sanctions imposed on Chinese chipmakers, ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC), leading Chinese suppliers of DRAM and NAND flash memory respectively, are pursuing distinct strategies to accelerate development despite US export restrictions. Sources at DigiTimes indicate that CXMT has commenced mass production of 18.5 nm process DRAM chips at its new plant in Hefei. By slightly exceeding the US limit of 18 nm, CXMT aims to increase capacity while technically complying with Commerce Department rules. The phase-one Hefei plant is nearly at full utilization, with monthly output reaching 100,000 wafers. The upcoming phase-two expansion, adding 40,000 monthly wafers by the end of 2024, could give CXMT 10% of total DRAM capacity at global scale. Moreover, CXMT plans to increase domestic sourcing for the new expansion significantly.

In contrast, YMTC's capacity growth faces constraints across the board after being added to the US Entity List. With imports of key equipment now halted, building up local supply chains for materials and tools has proven challenging. Despite R&D advances, including NAND flash with over 300 layers, YMTC has introduced new 120-layer products that intentionally fall under the US limit of 128. However, even these compliant chips await US approval for higher production. Looking ahead, while CXMT has carved a viable path around US restrictions, YMTC's capacity plans face ongoing obstacles. Still, through determined R&D efforts, including 232-layer and future 300+ layer NAND, YMTC aims to push China's semiconductor capabilities forward despite external headwinds.

Chinese memory maker Yangtze Memory Technology Corp (YMTC) is allegedly preparing its next-generation Xtacking 4.0 3D NAND flash architecture for next-generation memory chips. According to the documentation obtained by Tom's Hardware, YMTC has developed two SKUs based on the upgraded Xtacking 4.0: X4-9060, a 128-layer three-bit-per-cell (TLC) 3D NAND, and the X4-9070, a 232-layer TLC 3D NAND. By using string stacking on both of these SKUs, YMTC plans to make the 3D NAND work by incorporating arrays with 64 and 116 active layers stacked on top of each other. This way, the export regulation rules from the US government are met, and the company can use the tools that are not under the sanction list.

While YMTC has yet to fully disclose the specific advantages of the Xtacking 4.0 technology, the industry anticipates significant enhancements in data transfer speeds and storage density. These improvements are expected to stem from increased plane counts for optimized parallel processing, refined bit/word line configurations to minimize latency, and the development of modified chip variants to boost production yields. When YMTC announced Xtacking 3.0, the company offered 128-layer TLC and 232-layer four-bit-per-cell (QLC) variants and was the first company to achieve 200+ layer count in the 3D NAND space. The Xtacking 3.0 architecture incorporates string stacking and hybrid bonding techniques and uses a mature process node for the chip's CMOS underlayer. We have to wait for the final Xtacking 4.0 details when YMTC's officially launches the SKUs.

Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC), China's biggest NAND flash memory manufacturer, has successfully raised billions of US Dollars in new capital to adapt to challenging US restrictions. According to the report from Financial Times, YMTC, which was added to a trade blacklist in December and barred from procuring US equipment to manufacture chips, exceeded its funding target. However, the exact amount remains undisclosed. The capital increase became necessary due to YMTC's substantial spending on finding alternative equipment and developing new components and core chipmaking tools. This financing round was oversubscribed by domestic investors, reflecting support for YMTC amid tightening US restrictions.

Last year, YMTC managed to raise 50 billion Chinese Yuan or about 7 billion US Dollars for equipment. Spending it all on the supply chain, the company is now looking to bolster its offerings with additional equipment for its memory facilities. One of the investors in the funding rally for YMTC has made a statement for Finanical Times: "If Chinese companies have equipment that can be used, [YMTC] will use it. If not, it will see if countries other than the US can sell to it. If that doesn't work, YMTC will develop it together with the supplier." This statement indicates that the company is looking into several options, where one is simply developing its custom machinery with the suppliers.

During the China Chip Storage Future 2023 Storage Industry Trend Summit, Yingren Technology, widely recognized as InnoGrit outside of China, announced the initiation of mass production of its enterprise-level YR S900 PCIe 5.0 SSD controller. Marking a significant breakthrough, the YR S900 stands as China's first domestic PCIe 5.0 SSD controller. Operating on an open-source RISC-V architecture, the YR S900 is engineered to align with U.S. export restrictions, ensuring a seamless design and manufacturing process of the SSD controller. While Yingren Technology remains discreet about the specific process node to produce the YR S900, it's known that the controller embodies a versatile design, with compatibility extending to mainstream NAND from eminent manufacturers, and exhibits an impressive synergy with NAND from Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC).

The YR S900 is a quad-channel controller, offering sequential read and write speeds peaking at 14 GB/s and 12 GB/s, respectively, and is equipped with InnoGrit's third-generation ECC engine to optimize 4K LDPC encoding and decoding. This collaboration with Kioxia's XL-Flash results in a low 4K random read latency of 10us, highlighting its potential to deliver higher data throughput, increased stability, and extended service life. The YR S900 encompasses a comprehensive feature set, including FDP, SR-IOV hardware virtualization, CMB, and a range of data encryption algorithms. While the mass production of the YR S900 underscores a monumental stride in SSD solutions within China, it remains to be seen whether adopting this new Chinese technology will enter markets beyond China.

China has sharply increased imports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment in recent months, customs data reveals. The country's purchases of chip production tools surged to record highs of nearly $5 billion in June and July, a 70% increase versus the same period last year, which amounted to $2.9 billion. The spike comes right before export restrictions on advanced chipmaking equipment are implemented by the U.S. and its allies. The moves aim to slow China's technological advancement, but Chinese chipmakers are stockpiling to avoid disruptions. Much of the equipment comes from the Netherlands and Japan, which have imposed licensing requirements on certain tool exports. While it's unclear how many are affected, the rush suggests China wants to expand production capacity and buffer against supply chain issues.

Chinese firms like SMIC and YMTC rely heavily on U.S., Dutch, and Japanese suppliers for cutting-edge manufacturing equipment. They are utilizing imported tools to boost the output of mature chips not subject to controls, particularly for electric vehicles, renewable energy, and industrial applications. Significantly, imports from the Netherlands doubled as lithography machines were delivered to Chinese foundries. Purchases from Japan also rose as companies procured etching tools and wafer coaters after 2020 U.S. restrictions. Newly established foundries backed by local governments contributed as Beijing pushed chip production expansions. Despite export control challenges, China aims to keep advancing its semiconductor capabilities. The import spike highlights intensified efforts to build self-sufficiency using older technology not covered by current limits.

It appears that Samsung is getting ready to beat SK Hynix in the race to 300 plus layers of NAND Flash, at least according to reports coming out of South Korea. The Seoul Economic Daily claims in an exclusive that Samsung will have a 300 plus layer V-NAND—(V for Vertical or 3D NAND—chip ready for production in 2024 and could as such beat SK Hynix by as much as a year, depending on how soon Samsung can deliver. Currently Samsung's most cutting edge stacked NAND is a 236-layer product, which is four more layers than Micron and YMTC, but two less than SK Hynix.

What sticks out in the Seoul Economic Daily news piece is that unlike SK Hynix, which is going for a triple stack sandwich, Samsung will apparently stick with two stacks. This means that Samsung is aiming for over 150-layers of NAND per stack, which seems like a big risk to take when it comes to yields. The taller the stacks, the bigger the chance of a failed stack, but maybe Samsung has found a solution around this potential issue. As modern 3D NAND relies on Through Silicon Vias, it's easier to manufacture denser stacks than in the past when wire bonding was used, but even so, this seems like a big risk for Samsung to take. That said, considering the current low demand and news of further cutbacks in production, it might be a good time for Samsung to utilise its fabs to test out this new, more densely stacked NAND to see if the company can mass produce it without issues. Samsung's roadmap calls for a 1000 plus layer V-NAND product by 2030, but it seems like the road there is still long and complicated.

The Chinese Government over the weekend announced restrictions on sales of Micron Technology memory products to Chinese government agencies and infrastructure operators, including the country's telecommunications network infrastructure and data-center service providers. The country's cyberspace regulator conducted a cybersecurity review of Micron Technology products and found that they fail a "network security review."

"The review found that Micron's products have serious network security risks, which pose significant security risks to China's critical information infrastructure supply chain, affecting China's national security," the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said in a statement to Reuters. This move by China is seen as a geopolitical retaliation to the U.S. Government restricting the sales of memory products by YMTC to American PC and ICT companies, a decision that caused the Chinese memory maker to lose major customers such as Apple. This is, however, a partial ban on the Idaho-based memory maker, since China hasn't yet restricted Chinese PC and ICT companies from sourcing Micron Technology products the way Washington banned YMTC.

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.

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.

YMTC, China's premier NAND flash and DRAM memory manufacturer, is reportedly laying off 10 percent of its workforce as it sees demand drop from loss in sales to major American customers. The company has a cutting-edge lineup of NAND flash memory at competitive prices and quality enough to meet Apple's standards. It had scored a major NAND flash supply deal with the iPhone maker in 2020, which fell through in 2022 as the U.S. government placed trade embargoes on Chinese chipmakers. The company continues to supply NAND flash chips to many of the popular Chinese smartphone and PC manufacturers. YMTC identified 10 percent of its workforce that it categorized as "underperforming," and laid them off. This even ended incentives such as discounted apartments. One terminated employee was reportedly asked to cough up RMB 400,000 (this discount) to keep their home.

Acer at the 2023 International CES showed off its latest lineup of memory and storage products targeting the DIY PC enthusiast market segment under its high-end Predator brand. Leading the booth is the Vesta II line of DDR5 memory modules featuring a high-end product design, and RGB LED lighting. The one shown to us featured a rather modest DDR5-5200 speed and 2x 16 GB density, but the company assured it is spreading the lineup to higher frequencies. The Pallas II line of performance-segment memory targeting creators, for example, does DDR5-6000.

A star attraction in the booth was the Predator GM7 M.2 NVMe SSD. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, the drive features a PCI-Express 4.0 x4 + NVMe 2.0 host interface, and combines a Maxiotech MAP1602 controller with YMTC 232-layer 3D TLC NAND flash based on the Xtacking 3.0 architecture. The drive offers sequential transfer speeds of up to 7400 MB/s reads, with up to 6300 MB/s writes, and comes in sizes of 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB, priced at USD $49.90, $89.90, and $159.99, respectively. Acer is backing these drives with a 5-year warranty.

YMTC, the Chinese DRAM and NAND flash company that recently announced a 232-layer 3D NAND flash memory that threatened to disrupt entrenched players Samsung, Micron Technology, Kioxia, and SK Hynix, has been blacklisted by the U.S. Department of Commerce, forcing American consumer electronics and PC manufacturers to stop sourcing from the company. Capitalizing on just this, Samsung raised prices of its NAND flash memory chips by as much as 10%, according to a DigiTimes report.

YMTC peaked when Apple struck a NAND flash supply deal with the company in 2020, which would see its storage devices power pretty much every Apple product you can think of, however, under political pressure, Apple withdrew from this deal in 2022. The Department of Commerce contention has been to that YMTC has access to cutting-edge technology, and is backed by Chinese state-capacity, which can help it drive out competitors. All is not well between the U.S. and China geopolitically, either. Samsung's 10% increase in the first half of December 2022 concerns spot-pricing, which could mean its contract pricing (usually used by customers placing very large orders), could be different. It is conceivable that the exit of YMTC from the U.S. market could raise NAND flash product prices across the board.

Global market intelligence firm TrendForce states that Chinese memory manufacturer YMTC is now at risk of exiting the market for 3D NAND Flash products by 2024 following its formal placement on the Entity List of the US Commerce Department on December 15. From this point forward, the Commerce Department will be reviewing and approving individual transactions related to the exportation, re-exportation, and sales of equipment, technologies, and other related goods from the US to YMTC. With acquisitions of equipment parts and technical support from its US partners becoming very difficult and prolonged, YMTC is going to be severely constrained from raising its bit output. Hence, its foothold on the market for 3D NAND Flash products is expected to weaken as time goes by.

TrendForce points out that without the support of the key equipment providers, YMTC is now facing a huge technical obstacle in the development of its latest 3D NAND Flash technology known as Xtacking 3.0. In particular, raising yield rate for the 128L and 232L processes is going to be extremely challenging for the Chinese memory manufacturer. Taking account of this latest escalation in the US-China trade dispute, TrendForce has further corrected down its projections on YMTC's supply bit growth rate and the total NAND Flash supply bit growth rate for next year. YMTC supply bits were initially forecasted to grow by 60% YoY for 2023. However, there was a massive downward correction that put its growth rate at just 18%. Now, YMTC is forecasted to post a YoY decline of 7%, which is a complete reversal from the earlier projections.

YMTC today at the Flash Memory Summit (FMS) 2022 unveiled its X3-9070 TLC 3D NAND flash powered by Xtacking 3.0 architecture. Since its debut show at FMS 2018, YMTC's Xtacking technology has become a hallmark of the company's vision for innovation, and the approach to hybrid bonding has been widely recognized as one of the key enablers of the industry's future growth. Built out to be a common growth platform that drives value and innovation in the semiconductor ecosystem, YMTC's Xtacking 3.0 architecture opens up a world of opportunities for diversified applications in 5G, AloT, and beyond.

From 1.0 to 3.0, YMTC's Xtacking technology, a heterogeneous 3D integration architecture, has established a proven track record of success, as evidenced by a diverse portfolio of Xtacking NAND-based system solutions, including SATA III, PCIe Gen3 & Gen4 SSDs, as well as eMMC & UFS for mobile and embedded applications, garnering recognition from leading OEMs.

YMTC delivered on its roadmaps to achieve a mass-production 232-layer 3D NAND flash memory, beating entrenched players Kioxia, Micron Technology, Samsung Electronics, and SK Hynix, to the production 200+ layer feat. The Chinese memory and NAND flash giant announced this memory back in August 2022 as the YMTC X3-9070, along with its new Xtacking 3.0 architecture—a proprietary method by which the company can reliably stack a large number of NAND flash layers. Micron Technology is ready with a 232-layer 3D NAND flash of its own, although it hasn't hit a production ramp, yet. This is an incredible feat considering that YMTC only got into this business in 2016, compared to the other players that each have over two decades of market presence.

YMTC's ramp to 232-layer closely follows its unexpected 2020 feat of a production-grade 128-layer 3D NAND, which was groundbreaking enough to win a supply contract with Apple, before losing it in October 2022, due to political reasons (not technological reasons). The Xtacking 3.0 architecture involves back side source connect (BSSC) for the memory cell wafer, which leads to simpler process and lower cost compared to Xtacking 2.0 (up to 128-layers, which had introduced nickel silicide (NiSi) instead of tungsten silicide (WSi) for better device performance and I/O speed for CMOS wafer. The original Xtacking architecture from YMTC, which it debuted back in 2016, with layer counts going up to 64-layer, relied on cost-effective wafer-to-wafer bonding. The YMTC 232-layer 3D NAND flash should find plenty of takers in the consumer electronics industry, spanning smartphones, consumer storage devices, TVs, and other appliances. The high layer-count has a direct impact on density, which can help designers lower costs by using fewer chips, or increase capacity.

In September, we reported that Apple, the world's most valuable company, would source some of its 3D NAND flash chips from the Chinese Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC). However, according to the latest political pressure from the US government, Apple has reportedly canceled any contracts with the Chinese company and will not include their 3D NAND chips in the production of iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers. Even with YTMC's Xstacking 3.0 six-plane architecture that provides triple-level cell storage with I/O speeds of 2400 MT/s, Apple is not going to source any NAND Flash memory as US-China political relationship gets tighter regulations.

However, this could not be a deal breaker for both companies, as NAND Flash is in high demand, and new clients will emerge. As for Apple, the company has contracts with Kioxia, SK Hynix, Samsung, and possibly others that will ensure a steady supply of storage for the company's solutions.

As reported by BusinessKorea, Apple, one of the largest companies in the world, will source its 3D NAND from Chinese memory maker Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC). Known for supplying 3D NAND to Chinese SSD makers, YTMC's reported contract with Apple will fuel the upcoming iPhone 14 SKU manufacturing. Whether or not this partnership will expand to other products, it is essential to have as many storage sources as possible, as Apple sells millions of devices per year. YTMC is on track to deliver 3D NAND flash with the latest Xstacking 3.0 six-plane architecture that provides triple-level cell storage with I/O speeds of 2400 MT/s.

YTMC has joined the list of 3D NAND flash vendors that Apple works with, including SK Hynix, Samsung, Kioxia, and possibly others. This partnership also highlights that the Chinese memory output is sufficient and significant enough to break into more markets worldwide, not remaining exclusive to domestic use.

According to TrendForce research, material supply improvement and spiking demand for enterprise SSDs from North American hyperscale data center and enterprise clients in 2Q22 coupled with the Kioxia contamination incident in 1Q22 prompted customers to ramp up procurement to avoid future supply shortages. Manufacturers also give priority to meeting the needs of server customers due to the high pricing of enterprise SSD. In the second quarter, overall revenue of the enterprise SSD market increased by 31.3% to US$7.32 billion.

As the market leader, Samsung has grown its enterprise SSD revenue to US$3.26 billion with the recovery of enterprise SSD procurement. Especially in the second quarter, when orders for other consumer products continued to decline, enterprise SSD became the company's outlet for reducing production capacity. At present, Samsung has been continuously investing in the development of next-generation transmission specification products such as the CXL 2.0 product released at the Flash Summit in early August, in order to maintain a leading position in the market.

YMTC today at the Flash Memory Summit (FMS) 2022 unveiled its X3-9070 TLC 3D NAND flash powered by Xtacking 3.0 architecture. Since its debut show at FMS 2018, YMTC's Xtacking technology has become a hallmark of the company's vision for innovation, and the approach to hybrid bonding has been widely recognized as one of the key enablers of the industry's future growth. Built out to be a common growth platform that drives value and innovation in the semiconductor ecosystem, YMTC's Xtacking 3.0 architecture opens up a world of opportunities for diversified applications in 5G, AloT, and beyond.

From 1.0 to 3.0, YMTC's Xtacking technology, a heterogeneous 3D integration architecture, has established a proven track record of success, as evidenced by a diverse portfolio of Xtacking NAND-based system solutions, including SATA III, PCIe Gen3 & Gen4 SSDs, as well as eMMC & UFS for mobile and embedded applications, garnering recognition from leading OEMs.

According to TrendForce research, looking at NAND Flash wafers, the pricing of which more sensitively reflects the market, suppliers are increasingly motivated to cut prices in exchange for sales due to weak retail demand since March and a more conservative outlook for shipments of other end products. The price of NAND Flash wafers is expected to begin falling in May and the supply of NAND Flash will gradually overtake demand in 2H22. The price decline of NAND Flash wafers in 3Q22 may reach 5~10%.

At the same time, TrendForce indicates that February's contamination incident at Kioxia was expected to tighten the market in 2Q22 and 3Q22. However, as a consequence of rising inflation and the war between Russia and Ukraine, market demand for consumer products in the traditional peak season of the second half of the year is trending conservative and the prices of client SSD, eMMC, and UFS in 3Q22 will be flat compared to 2Q22, breaking from the original expectation that prices may rise. In terms of enterprise SSDs, as demand for data centers remains strong, no significant correction in demand has yet been observed. However, as the overall NAND Flash market gradually moves into oversupply, prices will only grow slightly by approximately 0~5% in 3Q22.

Colorful Technology Company Limited, a professional manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards, all-in-one gaming and multimedia solutions, and high-performance storage, proudly presents its first-ever PCIe 3.0 NVMe solid-state drive - the COLORFUL WarHalberd CN600. COLORFUL collaborated with Yangtze Memory (YMTC) and Maxio Technology for the CN600 SSD. The cooperation between the companies will ensure the quality and performance of the flash components and the NVMe controller.

The COLORFUL WarHalberd CN600 NVMe SSD is a low-profile NVMe SSD in a standard 2280 M.2 form factor, designed for desktop PCs, laptops, ultrabooks, and mini-PCs. Using PCIe 3.0 X4 interface, the WarHalberd CN600 delivers speeds of up to 3300 MB/s read and up to 2600 MB/s write. The SSD will be offered in 256 GB and 512 GB capacities.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic led to severe delays in manufacturing and logistics. In particular, governments worldwide began implementing border restrictions in 2Q20 to combat the ongoing health crisis, leading to a sudden decline in order volumes for channel-market SSDs, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. Annual shipment of SSDs to the channel (retail) market reached 111.5 million units in 2020, a 15% YoY decrease. In terms of market share by shipment, Kingston, ADATA, and Kimtigo once again occupied the top three spots, respectively.

Looking at the channel market for SSDs as a whole, NAND Flash suppliers (among which Samsung possessed the largest market share) accounted for around 35% of the total shipments in 2020, while SSD module makers accounted for the other 65%. The top 10 module makers accounted for 71% of channel-market SSD shipments from all SSD module makers. Taken together, these figures show that the market remained relatively oligopolistic in 2020. However, it should be noted that TrendForce's ranking of SSD module makers for 2020 takes account of only products bound for the channel market and under brands owned by the module makers themselves; NAND Flash suppliers were therefore excluded from the top 10 ranking.

Chinese manufacturer Asgard has announced the company's (and the Chinese market's) first PCIe 4.0 SSD. The AN4 pairs 128 Layer 3D TLC NAND manufactured by YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd) Xtacking 2.0 technology, which uses a two-step manufacturing process wherein both NAND cells and interconnects are manufactured in two separate wafers and then optically fused. The NAND memory is then paired with Innogrit's IG5236 Rainier controller. The AN4 is rated for 7,500 MB/s and 5,500 MB/s sequential read and write speeds and features a "high" TBW endurance rating, though Asgard didn't clarify the exact random performance figures, nor the TBW rating for the SSD. Pricing is similarly up in the air - Asgard has only announced market availability for the 1 TB SSD solution come August, with additional 2 TB and 512 GB capacities being readied to market for a later timeframe.

The manufacturing technology of YMTC results in NAND that's as fast as Micron's latest 192-layer NAND tech, and beats well-established Kioxia's 96-layer technology performance-wise. One Bilibili forum user put the drive through its paces, and discovered that to unlock its full potential, one has to have a system capable of 512 bit maximum payload size (MPS), which is currently only supported by AMD motherboards - maximum Intel MPS currently stands at 256 bit, which "only" enables sequential performance of up to 7,150 MB/s. The user put the AN4 through a variety of tests, including PCMark 10's Drive Performance Consistency Test - a 10 to 20 hours workload marathon that puts more than 23 TB of drives on the SSD. It seems that Chinese manufacturers have achieved parity with the top western manufacturers, meaning there is one more option in the global, high-performance NAND market.