Yangtze River Storage makes its first 3D NAND flash memory

Chip maker Yangtze River Storage set a milestone by becoming the first Chinese company to make 32-layer 3D NAND flash memory chips. The goal was hit ahead of time, the firm's original schedule was to launch 32-layer 3D NAND memory samples by the end of December.

As reported by DigiTimes, Yangtze River Storage Technology is one of the three major players in the Chinese memory sector. These firms want to challenge the dominance of Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron/Intel, and Toshiba/Western Digital in the coming years:

YMTC belongs to one of China's three major memory camps and the country's only player in the 3D NAND sector. The other two camps, Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit affiliated with Taiwan-based United Microelectronics (UMC) and Hefei Ruili Integrated Circuit teaming up with GigaDevice Semiconductor, focus on the DRAM sector.

YMTC was originally scheduled to launch its first 32-layer 3D NAND sample chips by the end of December, but the launch was advanced significantly as it smoothly put the chips in SSD (solid state disk) and successfully finished the test of applying the chips to terminal devices in the first half of November, the industry sources said.

The next step for Yangtze River Storage is the development of 64-layer technology to narrow the gap with the NAND big-wigs.