YMTC Using Locally Sourced Equipment for Advanced 3D NAND Manufacturing

[AleksandarK]

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.



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[AceKingSuited]

The US and EU are shooting themselves in the foot and will get shut out of the Chinese market once they developed the NAND Technology. NAND isn't some bleeding edge tech like CPU/GPU/AI accelerators, it's just memory. Even slower memory; a few nodes behind are still acceptable in a lot of applications unlike CPUs/GPUs which require the top of line and bleeding edge.

The sanctions had the right idea but poor execution as usual with government policies. Micron/Samsung/SK Hynix is going to get banned once YMTC can provide a viable alternative and Micron's China sales are 25% of it's overall revenue, imagine losing 25% of sales just like that. The sanctions against China doesn't work, they will just come up with an alternative that's just as good so US and EU companies lose sales and bolster the Chinese companies. They got shut out of the space program, airplanes, jet engines, GPS, EVs, Windows, Renewable energy and China developed a viable alternative for each of them.

It's better to keep the gravy train rolling and keep selling to them than forced them developed their own to compete with you.

 

[Leiesoldat]

You mean where China stole the IP to develop the 3D Nand features instead of playing ball with the rest of the international community right? Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix don't want to violate the export control rules and risk losing access to the rest of the world for a measly 25%. The defined risks of working with China are too great: work with them and almost certainly lose your protected IP because China doesn't care about IP law or violate the US export control rules on all underlying technology for the semiconductor industry and be shut out completely world wide.

Sanctions do work but they take time to take effect like condition damage in games. I highly doubt that China developed many of those specialized industries on their own (see stolen IP). They definitely have good scientists but their peer reviewed work is a travesty and doesn't hold up in the scientific community.

 

[evernessince]

They got shut out of the space program, airplanes, jet engines, GPS, EVs, Windows, Renewable energy and China developed a viable alternative for each of them.

No, they got caught stealing dozens of times before they were shut off. Stop trying to paint China as the victim here, they are not. Everything that's happened to them is the result of their own bad behavior.