China unlikely to kick off DRAM industry within next five years?

DigiTimes writes it seems unlikely that China will be able to develop a home-grown DRAM industry within the next five years. Responding to the country's ambitions to get into the memory market, Inotera Memories and Nanya Technology said China may gain access to proprietary technology through licensing, but building out production capacity would still require a period of time:

China might be able to gain access to proprietary technologies through technology licensing, but building a certain scale of production capacity would still require a period of time, the Taiwan-based DRAM makers commented. That means China's impact on the memory industry would not be felt until after 2-3 years, the makers said.

The key DRAM technologies are being held by Samsung Electronics, Micron Technology and SK Hynix. Under the current circumstances, none of the vendors should consider licensing their technologies to China-based companies as they are aware of oversupply concerns, the makers indicated.

The global DRAM industry just ended its two-year downturn, and has begun to benefit from a healthier supply-demand dynamic, the makers said.