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Opinionated - China Chipping Away to Semiconductor Dominance

Chinese Wafer Maker Starts Building USD253 Million Plant to Tackle Foreign Monopoly
DOU SHICONG
DATE: TUE, 03/20/2018 - 13:32 / SOURCE:YICAI
1.3%E5%AE%81%E5%A4%8F%E5%8D%8A%E5%AF%BC%E4%BD%93%E5%A4%A7%E5%B0%BA%E5%AF%B8%E7%A1%85%E7%89%87%E9%A1%B9%E7%9B%AE%E6%AD%A3%E5%BC%8F%E5%BC%80%E5%B7%A5.jpg

Chinese Wafer Maker Starts Building USD253 Million Plant to Tackle Foreign Monopoly

(Yicai Global) March 20 — Ningxia Yinhe Semiconductor Technology Co. has officially begun construction of its CNY1.6-billion (USD253-million) silicon wafer factory in northwestern China as the nation continues to press ahead with chipmaking technology.

The plant, located at Yinchuan Economy and Technology Development Zone, will be able to produce 4.2 million eight-inch waters and 2.4 million 12-inch wafers a year once built, Ningxia Daily reported. The components will be used in the communications, automotive, medical and defends sectors to generate CNY1 billion annually, the report said.

Yinhe’s large wafers will help tear down the monopoly held by companies from Japan, South Korea and the United States, and reduce a China’s reliance on imports for high-quality components, it added, saying this will, in turn, reduce costs and make the industry more competitive.

Yinchuan Economy & Technology Development Zone was set up in 2001 and focuses on manufacturing, new energy and new materials. It is home to a monocrystal silicon production facility base and China’s largest industrial sapphire production base.
 
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China playing bigger role in global fabless IC market, says IC Insights
Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES, Taipei
Monday 26 March 2018

China-based companies have shown the largest fabless IC market share gain since 2010, according to IC Insights. China-based fabless chipmakers collectively captured an only 5% share of the global fabless IC market in 2010, and the share climbed to 11% in 2017.

Already 10 China-based fabless companies were included in IC Insights' top-50 fabless IC supplier list in 2017 compared to only one company in 2009. Unigroup was the largest China-based fabless IC supplier and ninth-largest global fabless supplier in 2017 with sales of US$2.1 billion.

It is worth noting that when excluding the internal transfers of HiSilicon (over 90% of its sales go to its parent company Huawei), ZTE and Datang, the China share of the global fabless market would have reached about 6% in 2017, IC Insights noted.

At 53%, US companies accounted for the greatest share of fabless IC sales in 2017 although this share was down from 69% in 2010 due in part to the acquisition of Broadcom by Singapore-based Avago, IC Insights said. Broadcom Limited currently describes itself as a "co-headquartered" company with its headquarters in San Jose, California and Singapore, but it is in the process of establishing its headquarters entirely in the US. Once this takes place, the US share of the fabless companies IC sales will again be about 69%.

Taiwan captured 16% share of total fabless company IC sales in 2017, about the same percentage that it held in 2010, IC Insights said. MediaTek, Novatek and Realtek each had more than US$1 billion in IC sales last year and each was ranked among the top-20 largest fabless IC companies.

European companies held only 2% of the fabless IC company market share in 2017 as compared to 4% in 2010, IC Insights noted. The loss of share was due to the acquisition of UK-based CSR, the second-largest European fabless IC supplier, by Qualcomm in the first quarter of 2015 and the purchase of Germany-based Lantiq, the third-largest European fabless IC supplier, by Intel in second-quarter 2015. These acquisitions left UK-based Dialog (US$1.4 billion in sales in 2017) and Norway-based Nordic (US$236 million in sales in 2017) as the only two European-based fabless IC suppliers to make the list of top-50 fabless IC suppliers last year.

The fabless IC business model is not so prominent in Japan or in South Korea. Megachips, which saw its 2017 sales jump by 40% to US$640 million, was the largest Japan-based fabless IC supplier, IC Insights said. The lone South Korean company among the top-50 largest fabless suppliers was Silicon Works, which had a 15% increase in sales last year to US$605 million.

Fabless IC suppliers accounted for 27% of the world's IC sales in 2017, an increase from 18% ten years earlier in 2007, according to IC Insights.


https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20180326PR201.html
 
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China to boost integrated circuit, microelectronics industry
Source: Xinhua| 2018-04-11 15:55:43|Editor: Yurou


BEIJING, April 11 (Xinhua) -- China will set up a network platform in Qingdao, a coastal city in east China's Shandong Province, to promote the development of microelectronics.

According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the public platform of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) will help local enterprises in the integrated circuit (IC) industry improve design efficiency and reduce development costs.

It will provide design, software, intellectual property rights, and technical training services for the firms.

The platform is expected to push forward development of the IC industry chain.
 
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China to boost integrated circuit, microelectronics industry
Source: Xinhua| 2018-04-11 15:55:43|Editor: Yurou


BEIJING, April 11 (Xinhua) -- China will set up a network platform in Qingdao, a coastal city in east China's Shandong Province, to promote the development of microelectronics.

According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the public platform of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) will help local enterprises in the integrated circuit (IC) industry improve design efficiency and reduce development costs.

It will provide design, software, intellectual property rights, and technical training services for the firms.

The platform is expected to push forward development of the IC industry chain.

But Trump had just skillfully managed to stop China from Made in China 2025 plan...

:eek:

I guess victories do not last long.
 
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For real, or are you just being sarcastic?

I am not really sure I am real or sarcastic because some in the Western media actually believe Trump succeeded to force China going back to making plastic toys and t-shirts, leaving AI, advanced materials, autonomous driving, semiconductors etc. to the better (littlest) half of the humanity called the developed West.

How could China dare to challenge the US semiconductor by trying to establish its own domestic industry?

That's a bigger crime than Cambridge Analytica getting Trump elected by sending tailored messages to millions of voters with analytical capacity as little as twitter word count.

I think I am serious. :enjoy:
 
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11 Apr 2018 | 13:09 GMT
"Quasi-Non-Volatile" Memory Looks to Fill Gap Between Volatile and Non-Volatile Memory
2D materials produce a semi-floating gate memory that falls somewhere between DRAM and SRAM
By Dexter Johnson

MzA0Mzc3OQ.jpeg
Image: School of Microelectronics, Fudan University
This schematic shows the design for a new semi-floating gate memory.


Researchers at Fudan University in Shanghai, China have leveraged two-dimensional (2D) materials to fabricate a relatively new gate design for transistors that may fill the gap between volatile and non-volatile memory.

The result is what the researchers are dubbing a “quasi-non-volatile” device that combines the benefits of static random access memory (SRAM) and dynamic random access memory(DRAM). The new device will make up for DRAM’s limited data retention ability and its need to be frequently refreshed and SRAM’s high cost.

In research described in Nature Nanotechnology, the Chinese researchers leveraged a gate design that has been gaining popularity, recently called semi-floating gate (SFG) memory technology. The SFG gate design is similar to a typical field effect transistor except that SFG transistor can “remember” the applied voltage from the gate.

The researchers have shown that the 2D SFG memory they have fabricated has 156 times longer refresh time (10 seconds) than DRAM (64 milliseconds), which saves power, and ultrahigh-speed writing operations on nanosecond timescales (15 nanoseconds), which puts it on par with DRAM (10 nanoseconds). This new device also boosts the writing operation performance to approximately 106 times faster than other memories based on 2D materials.

These improvements to refresh time and writing operations suggest that the quasi-non-volatile memory has the potential to bridge the gap between volatile and non-volatile memory technologies and decrease the power consumption demanded by frequent refresh operations, enabling a high-speed and low-power random access memory.

The first floating gate transistor was made in 1967 and since then has become a mainstay of nonvolatile memory technology. However, the writing/erasing speed of a floating gate transistor is around one millisecond, making it slower than the CPU, prohibiting its use where a high writing speed is needed.

The researchers saw that there was a chance to improve the performance of a floating gate transistor because so much of its performance is based on its band structure and the interface between the transistor’s channel and its gate dielectric.

Increasingly, research has shown that through the careful layering of different types of 2D materials—alternating between insulators and conductors—it’s possible to tailor the band structure of these hybrid 2D materials. These layered materials, known as van der Waals heterostructures because van der Waal forces hold each layer in place, can snap into place like a LEGO brick despite having different lattice structures. This stacking capability makes it easier to tailor the electronic properties of the heterostructures to create functional devices.

“Two-dimensional materials have abundant band structures, which provides much more freedom in the design of a floating gate transistor and allows for the ability to achieve better performance,” said Peng Zhou, a professor at Fudan University and co-author of the research. “What’s more, the perfect interface of 2D materials can improve the reliability of a floating gate transistor.”

The device architecture consists of a channel made from the 2D material tungsten diselenide. A combination of the 2D semiconductor molybdenum disulfide with the insulator hexagonal boron nitride serves as the semi-blocking layer. The heterojunction between molybdenum disulfide and tungsten diselenide serves as the p–n-junction switch.

To put this work in context, you need to see it in terms of the metal-oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET): the fundamental element of most integrated circuits. MOSFETs are basically a switch in which a voltage from the gate turns on or off a flow of current between the source and the drain.

But anyone who has followed the challenges brought on by Moore’s Law over the last 20 years knows that as the dimensions of these devices have shrunk, it becomes increasingly difficult for the gates of a MOSFET to stop the flow of electrons.

While some have shown that one-nanometer gate dimensions are possible in these devices, it’s still proving an engineering challenge to get past the five-nanometer limit, at which point electrons start pulling their trick of tunneling right through the gate material.

With the SFG architecture, electron tunneling is turned from a disadvantage into an advantage. This is achieved by the SFG design including a tunneling field-effect transistor that couples the positively doped floating gate to the negatively doped drain region. The charge stored on the SFG is used to shift the voltage threshold for switching the transistor, which in turn speeds up its operation and lowers its power consumption.

Zhou believes that the main challenge in making this device commercially viable is achieving wafer scale production of 2D materials.

Zhou added: “If we can get wafer-scale uniform 2D materials, the 2D SFG quasi-nonvolatiole memory can realized by industry.”



"Quasi-Non-Volatile" Memory Looks to Fill Gap Between Volatile and Non-Volatile Memory - IEEE Spectrum
 
Last edited:
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Chinese scientists discover a new semiconductor for flexible display
(People's Daily Online) 16:11, April 11, 2018

FOREIGN201804111610000210383825764.jpg

[File photo Xinhua]

Chinese scientists on Monday revealed the discovery of a room-temperature ductile inorganic semiconductor, which is expected to serve as a new material for use in manufacturing as well as further research regarding flexible displays.

According to a paper submitted to Nature Materials by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Science, the new inorganic semiconductor, α-Ag2S, exhibits extraordinary metal-like ductility with high plastic deformation strains even at room temperature. Analysis of the chemical bounding reveals that it possesses a system of planes with relatively weak atomic interactions within the crystal structure.

“In combination with irregularly distributed silver–silver and sulfur–silver bonds due to the silver diffusion, they suppress the cleavage of the material, and thus result in unprecedented ductility. Our work opens up the possibility of a new search for ductile inorganic semiconductors/ceramics for flexible electronic devices,” the paper further noted.

Due to its promising application prospects, China has been making great effort on research and manufacture of flexible displays and new semiconductors. According to Xinhua, CSOT, a subsidiary of the Chinese smart product maker TCL Corp., started building the country's first production line for flexible displays in 2017, which will make China a key supplier of the product often used to make bracelet-shaped mobile phones and folding tablets. The production line is located in central China’s Wuhan and costs 35 billion yuan (5 billion U.S. dollars).
 
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Tsinghua Unigroup readies CNY370 billion for chip deployments in next 5 years, says chairman

Zhang Yuxin, Shenzhen; Willis Ke, DIGITIMES

Wednesday 11 April 2018

China's Tsinghua Unigroup has readied CNY370 billion (US$58.74 billion) to support its semiconductor deployments in the next five years, and plans to inject up to US$100 billion into chipset production in 10 years, according to Zhao Weiguo, chairman of the group.

Zhao recently made a surprise move by quitting the chairmanships of two subsidiaries - Unisplendour and Unigroup Guoxin, triggering speculation about the group's strategy changes.

Zhao, who remains Tsinghua Unigroup chairman, reiterated the company's ambition to become a world-class IT group while speaking at the opening session of the 2018 China Information Technology Expo (CITE) on April 9.

Zhao said that Tsinghua Unigroup will develop into a group covering businesses from chip production to cloud services through both in-house innovations and international cooperation, and by enhancing combinations between corporate and national strategies, IT industries and commercial practices, and domestic market developments and cross-border operations.

He said that Tsinghua Unigroup aims to become a capital-, talent- and technology-intensive company that can provide fundamental technologies and products to support the entire Internet and new IT industries, and it can compete well with global rivals.

Zhao also revealed that the Yangtze Memory Technology under the group will start equipment move-in on April 11, and will soon kick off small-scale production of 32-layer 64G 3D NAND memory chips.

He continued that through acquisitions, Tsinghua Unigroup has commanded a 27% global market share in the baseband, Wi-Fi, and power amplifier SoCs for smartphones, and has ranked as China's No.1 supplier of national IC card chips, financial card chips, SIM card chips, FPGAs, dedicated CPUs, specific DRAM and IoT chips.

In addition, Tsinghua Unigroup is also moving to build its own storage chip industry ecosystem through acquiring stakes in China's H3C, a major supplier of new IT solutions. In this aspect, the group is focusing its deployments on mobile connection, Internet and cloud services - the three fastest growing outlets for storage chips.

In the first half of 2018, the group will also launch public cloud services with a focus on the B2B sector with total investment of CNY12 billion, according to Zhao.

2_r.jpg


http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20180410PD222.html
 
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Tsinghua Unigroup readies CNY370 billion for chip deployments in next 5 years, says chairman

Zhang Yuxin, Shenzhen; Willis Ke, DIGITIMES

Wednesday 11 April 2018

China's Tsinghua Unigroup has readied CNY370 billion (US$58.74 billion) to support its semiconductor deployments in the next five years, and plans to inject up to US$100 billion into chipset production in 10 years, according to Zhao Weiguo, chairman of the group.

Zhao recently made a surprise move by quitting the chairmanships of two subsidiaries - Unisplendour and Unigroup Guoxin, triggering speculation about the group's strategy changes.

Zhao, who remains Tsinghua Unigroup chairman, reiterated the company's ambition to become a world-class IT group while speaking at the opening session of the 2018 China Information Technology Expo (CITE) on April 9.

Zhao said that Tsinghua Unigroup will develop into a group covering businesses from chip production to cloud services through both in-house innovations and international cooperation, and by enhancing combinations between corporate and national strategies, IT industries and commercial practices, and domestic market developments and cross-border operations.

He said that Tsinghua Unigroup aims to become a capital-, talent- and technology-intensive company that can provide fundamental technologies and products to support the entire Internet and new IT industries, and it can compete well with global rivals.

Zhao also revealed that the Yangtze Memory Technology under the group will start equipment move-in on April 11, and will soon kick off small-scale production of 32-layer 64G 3D NAND memory chips.

He continued that through acquisitions, Tsinghua Unigroup has commanded a 27% global market share in the baseband, Wi-Fi, and power amplifier SoCs for smartphones, and has ranked as China's No.1 supplier of national IC card chips, financial card chips, SIM card chips, FPGAs, dedicated CPUs, specific DRAM and IoT chips.

In addition, Tsinghua Unigroup is also moving to build its own storage chip industry ecosystem through acquiring stakes in China's H3C, a major supplier of new IT solutions. In this aspect, the group is focusing its deployments on mobile connection, Internet and cloud services - the three fastest growing outlets for storage chips.

In the first half of 2018, the group will also launch public cloud services with a focus on the B2B sector with total investment of CNY12 billion, according to Zhao.

2_r.jpg


http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20180410PD222.html

Made in China 2025 in display. I thought US trade sanctions already stopped it :lol:
 
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Tsinghua Unigroup readies CNY370 billion for chip deployments in next 5 years, says chairman

Zhang Yuxin, Shenzhen; Willis Ke, DIGITIMES

Wednesday 11 April 2018

China's Tsinghua Unigroup has readied CNY370 billion (US$58.74 billion) to support its semiconductor deployments in the next five years, and plans to inject up to US$100 billion into chipset production in 10 years, according to Zhao Weiguo, chairman of the group.

Zhao recently made a surprise move by quitting the chairmanships of two subsidiaries - Unisplendour and Unigroup Guoxin, triggering speculation about the group's strategy changes.

Zhao, who remains Tsinghua Unigroup chairman, reiterated the company's ambition to become a world-class IT group while speaking at the opening session of the 2018 China Information Technology Expo (CITE) on April 9.

Zhao said that Tsinghua Unigroup will develop into a group covering businesses from chip production to cloud services through both in-house innovations and international cooperation, and by enhancing combinations between corporate and national strategies, IT industries and commercial practices, and domestic market developments and cross-border operations.

He said that Tsinghua Unigroup aims to become a capital-, talent- and technology-intensive company that can provide fundamental technologies and products to support the entire Internet and new IT industries, and it can compete well with global rivals.

Zhao also revealed that the Yangtze Memory Technology under the group will start equipment move-in on April 11, and will soon kick off small-scale production of 32-layer 64G 3D NAND memory chips.

He continued that through acquisitions, Tsinghua Unigroup has commanded a 27% global market share in the baseband, Wi-Fi, and power amplifier SoCs for smartphones, and has ranked as China's No.1 supplier of national IC card chips, financial card chips, SIM card chips, FPGAs, dedicated CPUs, specific DRAM and IoT chips.

In addition, Tsinghua Unigroup is also moving to build its own storage chip industry ecosystem through acquiring stakes in China's H3C, a major supplier of new IT solutions. In this aspect, the group is focusing its deployments on mobile connection, Internet and cloud services - the three fastest growing outlets for storage chips.

In the first half of 2018, the group will also launch public cloud services with a focus on the B2B sector with total investment of CNY12 billion, according to Zhao.

2_r.jpg


http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20180410PD222.html
the best example of education-industry complex, not the Trump regime style military complex.
 
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Made in China 2025 in display. I thought US trade sanctions already stopped it :lol:

the best example of education-industry complex, not the Trump regime style military complex.

:D:D

长江存储国产3D闪存拿下第一笔订单:10776颗芯片

2018-04-13 07:58:14 来源:驱动之家

关键字:长江存储3D闪存芯片国产

据驱动之家4月12日报道,我国虽然在半导体芯片行业中落后世界先进水平太多,但也在一步一个脚印地前进,不断取得新突破。

据媒体报道,4月11日,由紫光集团联合国家集成电路产业投资基金、湖北集成电路产业投资基金、湖北科投共同投资建设的国家存储器基地项目,芯片生产机台正式进场安装,这标志着国家存储器基地从厂房建设阶段进入量产准备阶段。

紫光在武汉、南京、成都三地都有300mm闪存晶圆厂,这次率先启动的是武汉工厂,同时募集的800亿元资金也已经全部到位。

20180413080246671.jpg


紫光集团全球执行副总裁暨长江存储执行董事长高启全(from Taiwan:-))更是披露了一个振奋人心的好消息:长江存储的3D NAND闪存已经获得第一笔订单,总计10776颗芯片,将用于8GB USD存储卡产品。

紫光集团董事长兼长江存储董事长赵伟国在发言中强调,国家存储器基地项目是中国集成电路闪存芯片产业规模化发展“零”的突破,相当于中国科技领域的航空母舰。

20180413080246840.jpg


在此之前,基地生产厂房已于2017年9月提前一个月封顶,32层堆叠立体NAND闪存芯片自主研发也取得重大突破,如今又提前20天完成芯片生产机台搬入,就像是航母舾装完毕、开始装配武器弹药了。

今年底,基地就将实现国产3D闪存的小规模量产,用不了多久就能看到基于国产闪存的智能手机、SSD固态硬盘。

明年,长江存储还将开始64层堆叠闪存,单颗容量128Gb(16GB)。

20180413080247448.jpg
 
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:D:D

长江存储国产3D闪存拿下第一笔订单:10776颗芯片

2018-04-13 07:58:14 来源:驱动之家

关键字:长江存储3D闪存芯片国产

据驱动之家4月12日报道,我国虽然在半导体芯片行业中落后世界先进水平太多,但也在一步一个脚印地前进,不断取得新突破。

据媒体报道,4月11日,由紫光集团联合国家集成电路产业投资基金、湖北集成电路产业投资基金、湖北科投共同投资建设的国家存储器基地项目,芯片生产机台正式进场安装,这标志着国家存储器基地从厂房建设阶段进入量产准备阶段。

紫光在武汉、南京、成都三地都有300mm闪存晶圆厂,这次率先启动的是武汉工厂,同时募集的800亿元资金也已经全部到位。

20180413080246671.jpg


紫光集团全球执行副总裁暨长江存储执行董事长高启全(from Taiwan:-))更是披露了一个振奋人心的好消息:长江存储的3D NAND闪存已经获得第一笔订单,总计10776颗芯片,将用于8GB USD存储卡产品。

紫光集团董事长兼长江存储董事长赵伟国在发言中强调,国家存储器基地项目是中国集成电路闪存芯片产业规模化发展“零”的突破,相当于中国科技领域的航空母舰。

20180413080246840.jpg


在此之前,基地生产厂房已于2017年9月提前一个月封顶,32层堆叠立体NAND闪存芯片自主研发也取得重大突破,如今又提前20天完成芯片生产机台搬入,就像是航母舾装完毕、开始装配武器弹药了。

今年底,基地就将实现国产3D闪存的小规模量产,用不了多久就能看到基于国产闪存的智能手机、SSD固态硬盘。

明年,长江存储还将开始64层堆叠闪存,单颗容量128Gb(16GB)。

20180413080247448.jpg

You are rubbing salt to the insult :enjoy::lol:
 
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:D:D

长江存储国产3D闪存拿下第一笔订单:10776颗芯片

2018-04-13 07:58:14 来源:驱动之家

关键字:长江存储3D闪存芯片国产

据驱动之家4月12日报道,我国虽然在半导体芯片行业中落后世界先进水平太多,但也在一步一个脚印地前进,不断取得新突破。

据媒体报道,4月11日,由紫光集团联合国家集成电路产业投资基金、湖北集成电路产业投资基金、湖北科投共同投资建设的国家存储器基地项目,芯片生产机台正式进场安装,这标志着国家存储器基地从厂房建设阶段进入量产准备阶段。

紫光在武汉、南京、成都三地都有300mm闪存晶圆厂,这次率先启动的是武汉工厂,同时募集的800亿元资金也已经全部到位。

20180413080246671.jpg


紫光集团全球执行副总裁暨长江存储执行董事长高启全(from Taiwan:-))更是披露了一个振奋人心的好消息:长江存储的3D NAND闪存已经获得第一笔订单,总计10776颗芯片,将用于8GB USD存储卡产品。

紫光集团董事长兼长江存储董事长赵伟国在发言中强调,国家存储器基地项目是中国集成电路闪存芯片产业规模化发展“零”的突破,相当于中国科技领域的航空母舰。

20180413080246840.jpg


在此之前,基地生产厂房已于2017年9月提前一个月封顶,32层堆叠立体NAND闪存芯片自主研发也取得重大突破,如今又提前20天完成芯片生产机台搬入,就像是航母舾装完毕、开始装配武器弹药了。

今年底,基地就将实现国产3D闪存的小规模量产,用不了多久就能看到基于国产闪存的智能手机、SSD固态硬盘。

明年,长江存储还将开始64层堆叠闪存,单颗容量128Gb(16GB)。

20180413080247448.jpg
WUHAN 2025!
 
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China's Leading Memory Chip Players to Start Trial Production This Year
Wang Zhen
Date: Fri, 04/20/2018 - 14:38 / source:Yicai

2.4%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E4%B8%89%E5%A4%A7%E5%AD%98%E5%82%A8%E8%8A%AF%E7%89%87%E4%BC%81%E4%B8%9A%E9%A2%84%E8%AE%A1%E4%BB%8A%E5%B9%B4%E4%B8%8B%E5%8D%8A%E5%B9%B4%E9%9B%86%E4%B8%AD%E8%AF%95%E4%BA%A7.jpg

China's Leading Memory Chip Players to Start Trial Production This Year

(Yicai Global) April 20 -- China's three leading companies in the field of memory chips will start the intensive trial-production in the second half of this year, ahead of an expected wide-scale roll out next year, says a new research report.

Yangtze Memory Technology Co., Hefei Changxin Integrated Circuit Manufacture Co., and Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. are expected to spearhead the development of the country’s memory chip sector, market intelligence provider TrendForce said in a new report.

China’s chip industry has garnered much media attention in recent days following escalating trade frictions between China and the US, culminating in Chinese telecoms equipment maker ZTE Corp. receiving a seven-year ban from purchasing components and services from US suppliers.

Wuhan-based Yangtze Memory has been focusing on NAND Flash memory technologies and completed the first stage of its workshop construction last September. Trial-production is expected to start in the fourth quarter of this year with an initial monthly output of up to 10,000 chips.

Hefei Changxin and Fujian Jinhua have exerted efforts to develop Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chips, and the pair is expected to start trial-production and mass-production in the third quarter of 2018 and the first half of 2019, respectively.

China's memory chip industry will find it difficult to challenge the existing order of the global market in the short-term due to the relatively small scale of mass-production capacity in the initial stage. Chinese companies will face more challenges such as patent disputes, compared with the international memory chip giants, said TrendForce.

In the long term, as China's memory chip industry gradually matures, the two DRAM manufacturers are expected to ramp up to full capacity in 2020 or 2021, with total monthly output expected to reach 250,000 chips. Yangtze Memory plans to build three NAND Flash workshops in the long-term, with a total output of up to 300,000 chips per month.
 
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