Why Yangtze River Storage wants to make its own memory technology

Earlier this week there was a story about Yangtze River Storage wanting to develop its own DRAM technology. This company is a subsidiary of the China-based Tsinghua Unigroup and DigiTimes had an interview with the latter's executive vice president Charles Kau about the company's plans and relationships with other companies like Micron.

In particular, Kau explains the reason Yangtze River Storage wants to develop its own memory tech rather than licensing it from another party. Kau argues that Yangtze River Storage needs to avoid the mistakes made by other memory makers and develop the necessary in-house knowledge:

Q: Why does Yangtze River Storage insist on developing memory technology in-house?

A: If Yangtze River Storage decides to produce DRAM or NAND flash chips under licensing agreements, it will repeat the failure and painful process that Taiwan endured previously on the development of its DRAM industry. Taiwan failed to develop its own DRAM industry because a total of 7-8 companies were fighting over a pool if insufficient resources. China needs to concentrate its resources to succeed, while also building up its own technology know-how. We definitely will not steal related technologies from others.