Next year China may make its first homegrown 3D NAND

Industry sources told DigiTimes that China-based Yangtze River Storage Technology (YRST) is getting closer to manufacturing the region's first homegrown 3D NAND flash memory.

YRST is expected to finish the first phase of its $24 billion fab towards the end of this year, to be followed by a second phase in 2018 and a third phase in 2019. It's 300mm facility will be capable of manufacturing NAND flash memory and DRAM, and has a target production level of 300,000 wafers a month. The first 32-layer NAND flash memory is expected to roll out of the factory as early as late 2017.

YRST was formed with goverment subsidies and investments from several government-owned groups, and built based on Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing's (XMC) 12-inch IC R&D and manufacturing capability and "continue to develop XMC's presence in the memory-chip market," XMC disclosed in August. XMC added it has become YRST's wholly-owned subsidiary since 2016.

In fact, YRST took over XMC's role as China's main production base for DRAM and NAND flash memory, industry sources identified. XMC is now in charge of making China's homegrown NOR flash as well as logic chips, with monthly capacity of around 30,000 12-inch wafers.

The report also mentions YRST may play a role in Tsinghua Unigroup's planned strategic alliance with Micron Technology.