Chinese YMTC Achieves Mass-production of 232-layer 3D NAND, Beating Kioxia, Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix

[btarunr]

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.



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[Zaqq]

More stripes, more Adidas? Are they really beating the competition when there's zero info about other specifications?

 

[natr0n]

I wonder whos blueprints were stolen to make this happen.

I know it's possible it can all be original design too but then again.

 

[the54thvoid]

I wonder whos blueprints were stolen to make this happen.

I know it's possible it can all be original design too but then again.

I'm a fierce opponent of China bashing but considering they entered this field in 2016, the statistical improbability of this tech feat is staggeringly unlikely without some form of IP theft.

 

[seccentral]

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.

Imagine how that happened.

 

[Assimilator]

"Mass production" does not mean "cost effective". I think we'll find that, along with many of China's other pronouncements about their technological superiority, this is very much a beta product that simply isn't scalable to cost levels that allow it to compete.

 

[evernessince]

I'm a fierce opponent of China bashing but considering they entered this field in 2016, the statistical improbability of this tech feat is staggeringly unlikely without some form of IP theft.

Agreed. That timespan is hardly enough for an experienced played to catch up in a market, let alone starting from scratch.

 

[Wirko]

It's the first time I see any vertical dimensions annotated. It's good for getting a sense of how tall the stacks of cells actually are.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

I thought all of the major manufacturers put development on hold due to a NAND glut making R&D a waste of money.

Sounds like some engineers switched jobs when that was announced.

 

[Denver]

More stripes, more Adidas? Are they really beating the competition when there's zero info about other specifications?

Well I guess it's just a fallacious title with no basis to draw attention...

 

[Zareek]

It's amazing what can be accomplished when you are stealing information from several competitors at the same time. Shameful, but obviously they have no shame as they publicly flaunt it.

 

[55566112]

unstoppable

 

[Bones]

I'm a fierce opponent of China bashing but considering they entered this field in 2016, the statistical improbability of this tech feat is staggeringly unlikely without some form of IP theft.

Agreed - And it's also making me wonder what kind of microcode could be inside these chips too.
With all that density available per chip, hiding something in them would be all too easy to do.

 

[Prima.Vera]

110% IP stolen, that's a fact. But hey, at least we have more competition, which in the end is all that matters for end users. Us included.

 

[cellar door]

Imagine how guarded ASML's EUV IP is.... it is literally the last piece of the puzzle needed.

 

[Denver]

I have freedom and my internet is not meticulously controlled by the government, in my opinion I am on the winning side.

 

[caroline!]

Ah, the usual politics/sinophobic and even conspiracy theorist comments never cease to amaze me. The mental gymnastics some people do just to defend a narrative established by mainstream media and fanatic politicians is baffling.

It's about NAND memory, that said: TBW rate must be terrible, the true SSD is and will always be SLC and 2D if you like it, not a burger cell pattern. If the consumer market wasn't so moved by trends and obsessed with making everything smaller we could have 3.5", even 5.25" SLC drives that would outlast every other component in a computer, including the PSU. The problem with SLC is physical space, the amount of chips you can put in a single PCB, well, make the PCB bigger then.

 

[R-T-B]

Ah, the usual politics/sinophobic and even conspiracy theorist comments never cease to amaze me. The mental gymnastics some people do just to defend a narrative established by mainstream media and fanatic politicians is baffling.

It really isn't to me. I just think we are a lot less far from poo-flinging chimps than we pretend.

Even chimps probably have a few educated individuals who finally realized poo stinks, and sat out the wars. But the majority of our ancestors aren't that far from what we are doing here, just graduated from using actual feces to words or weapons (usually, sometimes feces adds dramatic effect, apparently).

 

[naksu]

I wonder whos blueprints were stolen to make this happen.

I know it's possible it can all be original design too but then again.

Well. Of they stole this from SOMEONE,Why didnt that SOMEONE beat them to the punch?

"Mass production" does not mean "cost effective". I think we'll find that, along with many of China's other pronouncements about their technological superiority, this is very much a beta product that simply isn't scalable to cost levels that allow it to compete.

Correction
This is NOT a Chinese pronouncement

a Canadian semiconductor and microelectronics intelligence provider, did the investigation and found that YMTC has introduced “the first 200+ layer 3D NAND Flash available on the market”,

110% IP stolen, that's a fact. But hey, at least we have more competition, which in the end is all that matters for end users. Us included.

110% stolen?

So lets see your evidence

 

[Wirko]

It's about NAND memory, that said: TBW rate must be terrible, the true SSD is and will always be SLC and 2D if you like it, not a burger cell pattern. If the consumer market wasn't so moved by trends and obsessed with making everything smaller we could have 3.5", even 5.25" SLC drives that would outlast every other component in a computer, including the PSU. The problem with SLC is physical space, the amount of chips you can put in a single PCB, well, make the PCB bigger then.

Now that sounds almost like a conspiracy theory, too. Just wait, one day you'll lose all your data on your TLC drives because volatile! In reality, how many consumers have burnt through their SSDs? How many businesses and datacenters?

As for making everything smaller. One can buy a SSD with lots of TBW in a giant E1.L package intended for storage servers - and yet, it's TLC. 4 TB capacity, and I have no doubt it can actually reach the stated 4.6 PBW and more.

Are there reasons to worry because bits are packed too tightly? Maybe but ... I remember reading an article that stated basically this: people wouldn't trust their data to hard disks if they understood hot densely packed the bits are on them. It takes complex signal processing to read out individual bits from the mess of magnetic fields on the platters. Well, that must have been some two decades ago ... we trusted our data to HDDs before that, and after that, and the bits don't just disappear (but any drive may fail, obviously).

 

[Assimilator]

Ah, the usual politics/sinophobic and even conspiracy theorist comments never cease to amaze me. The mental gymnastics some people do just to defend a narrative established by mainstream media and fanatic politicians is baffling.

It's about NAND memory, that said: TBW rate must be terrible, the true SSD is and will always be SLC and 2D if you like it, not a burger cell pattern. If the consumer market wasn't so moved by trends and obsessed with making everything smaller we could have 3.5", even 5.25" SLC drives that would outlast every other component in a computer, including the PSU. The problem with SLC is physical space, the amount of chips you can put in a single PCB, well, make the PCB bigger then.

Yeah, it's totally Sinophobic to be suspicious of a Chinese company able to make massive advancements in technology, in a far shorter period than it took far-more-established Western companies with far better pedigrees. Can't be reasonable at all to assume that those incredibly rapid achievements came about due to IP theft as opposed to hard work, especially when China is well-known for stealing IP from whoever, whenever and wherever it can.

Especially when you contrast the shambles that China's other high-technology industries (microprocessor and lithography) are in. Whey aren't they able to make the same massive leaps forward that YTMC is apaprently capable of doing? Can you explain that to me, @caroline! ? I'm waiting.

 

[R-T-B]

So lets see your evidence

How exactly did YMTC advance so fast?

That's what's hard to accept here. It simply does not seem plausible. I think extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs... so the burden of proof that it is "homegrown" honestly lies with China here.

 

[Patriot]

Yeah, it's totally Sinophobic to be suspicious of a Chinese company able to make massive advancements in technology, in a far shorter period than it took far-more-established Western companies with far better pedigrees. Can't be reasonable at all to assume that those incredibly rapid achievements came about due to IP theft as opposed to hard work, especially when China is well-known for stealing IP from whoever, whenever and wherever it can.

Especially when you contrast the shambles that China's other high-technology industries (microprocessor and lithography) are in. Whey aren't they able to make the same massive leaps forward that YTMC is apaprently capable of doing? Can you explain that to me, @caroline! ? I'm waiting.

Always amused at people throwing Sinophobe around. ( I realize your use was satirical)
Those that use it often understand the Chinese culture the least. What we have from the Chinese culture is impressively fast iteration of non-original ideas. And re-imagining, recycling of ideas. The servers that come out of Inspur and wiwynn are nothing short of remarkable. And the western world could have such awesome servers if companies were willing to cross license to each other more freely. It is easy to recognize in an Inspur server the bits that came from Dell, Cray, IBM, but the mashup is a masterpiece. It is also important to realize that culturally this is not IP theft, because it is iteration and improvement of design.

How can they advance past western designs? Quite easily. Any company that operates in China must form a JV (joint venture) with a member of the CCP on staff directly funneling information to the CCP.
The CCP then take this information and gives it to other Chinese companies to accelerate them as they see fit. It isn't rocket science, it isn't really even shrouded as some great mystery, it is simply the only way companies are allowed to exist if they want access to the Chinese market.

I for one really enjoy seeing all of the x99 motherboards on Aliexpress with recycled chipsets from 1155 boards, the reverse engineering is incredibly impressive.

 

[theeldest]

This whole story is based on TechInsights seeing a drive on the open market using YMTC but not by the other manufacturers. That's not really evidence of when a node is at production as the bigger entrenched players generally have contracts with specific customers for first products.

 

[Scrizz]

since most if not all of the big NAND players have fabs in China... They don't even have to travel far to see how it's done...

This whole story is based on TechInsights seeing a drive on the open market using YMTC but not by the other manufacturers. That's not really evidence of when a node is at production as the bigger entrenched players generally have contracts with specific customers for first products.

very true