Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC), China's largest NAND flash corporations, is said to be pushing ahead with an unprecedented pace on the third-phase investment under construction in Wuhan, China. The Wuhan Plant 3, which broke ground in Sep. last year, was initially expected to establish a full-scale mass production system next year, but local officials now expect that YMTC has adjusted the schedule to put a real mass-production system in place starting in the second half of this year.
According to Chinese semiconductor industry officials on the 30th, YMTC is rapidly moving to place NAND equipment orders and set up the plant for operation. A person familiar with YMTC's situation said, "Starting mass production just one year after beginning plant construction suggests YMTC chose a fast-track approach of bringing in some equipment and starting up lines early while the plant is still being built."
The backdrop for YMTC's rapid move to bring the new plant online is a bid to strengthen its footing in the global market during a super-boom in NAND. Unlike DRAM, NAND has many suppliers, including Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Micron, as well as Japan's Kioxia and China's YMTC. Although the AI boom has created demand that far exceeds supply, the large number of suppliers entails price competition risk.
There has also been growing analysis lately that YMTC's NAND technology has nearly caught up with Samsung Electronics and SK hynix compared with DRAM. YMTC currently has 270-layer 3D NAND technology, rapidly narrowing the gap with Samsung Electronics (286-layer) and SK hynix (321-layer). Based on long-term investment and aggressive recruitment of outside experts, evaluations say its Production yield and stability are not far behind those of the leading companies.
YMTC is currently on the U.S. Commerce Department's sanctions list, restricting imports of advanced manufacturing equipment. Even so, by embarking on construction of the third-phase Wuhan plant in Sep., it firmed up its resolve to continue its "rise" at least in NAND.
A Chinese industry official said, "YMTC appears to see this year—when Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are weighted toward DRAM and high-bandwidth memory (HBM)—as a 'golden time' and has set a strategy to aggressively focus on expanding NAND market share," adding, "In terms of technology and production capacity, YMTC is receiving the strongest support among local corporations from the Chinese government, so the influence YMTC wields in the global NAND market is expected to grow even larger over the next one to two years."
According to market research firm Counterpoint Research, based on NAND shipments, YMTC's market share reached 10% for the first time ever in the first quarter of last year and rose to 13% in the third quarter, up 4 percentage points (p) from a year earlier. That is close to the level of Micron of the United States, the world's No. 4.