Who will become the "spoiler" in China's memory chip market?

While the memory chip market in China is surging up and down, the emergence of “spoilers” is slowly changing the battlefield situation... With the continuous breakthrough and maturation of domestic 3D NAND Flash technology, coupled with the continuous improvement of DRAM production, the future and the top five memories The gap between the giants will become smaller and smaller.

With the continuous influx of global informatization waves, smart phones, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things are ushering in high-speed development opportunities. Under this background, its upstream memory chip industry has experienced an outbreak, and China, which is a major producer and consumer, naturally bears the brunt and becomes the main battlefield of the memory chip battle. While China's memory chip market has been surging up, the emergence of “spoilers” is slowly changing the battlefield situation...

The monopolistic situation in the United States, Japan and South Korea

With the global semiconductor market increasingly expanding, the shortage of supply in the chip market is becoming more and more obvious. Among them, the memory market is the most. According to statistics, the 2016 global memory market has a capacity of approximately US$80 billion, accounting for approximately 23% of the semiconductor market, and is the second largest product after logic circuits.

In terms of the current market, the memory is mainly divided into DRAM and NAND Flash. In 2016, the market capacity of DARM was about 41.4 billion U.S. dollars, and NAND Flash was about 34.6 billion U.S. dollars. In terms of DRAM, global DRAM prices have continued to rise for seven quarters, which is the longest time ever. According to industry figures, this rise will continue into the second quarter of 2018. In terms of NAND Flash, the global NAND Flash line has seen a shift from 2D to 3D, and the use of 3D NAND in SSD products is also increasing. At this point, the flash memory market supply has been eased.

Behind the supply shortage and high growth, the trend of monopoly has become even more obvious. According to data surveys, only five semiconductor companies in the US, Japan, and South Korea, including Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Intel, Micron Technology, and Toshiba Semiconductor, have monopolized almost 95% of the world's memory market.

Take Samsung Electronics as an example. According to industry estimates, 3D NAND Flash costs about 14 billion U.S. dollars, and DRAM is about 7 billion U.S. dollars. In the face of such an "attractive" memory market, Samsung Electronics could not resist the temptation. According to news, Samsung Electronics plans to increase DRAM prices by about 5% in 2018, and will increase investment in 3D NAND Flash technology research and development. Moreover, with the increase in the demand for smart phones, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things, 3D NAND Flash will make rapid progress. In this trend, China has also started its layout.

Violet International's "Spoiler" broke out

In fact, with the continuous drive of global memory market demand, the Chinese memory market is also showing significant improvement. In order to break the monopoly trend of US, Japanese, and Korean companies, Chinese chip companies have not given up their research on semiconductors. Moreover, with the continuous development of semiconductor process technology, the difficulty in research and development of memory chips has increased, and the advent of 3D NAND technology has provided opportunities for domestic manufacturers to overtake and overtake vehicles.

In 2016, when memory manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Intel, Micron, and Toshiba began mass production of 32-layer 3D NAND Flash, domestic memory manufacturers began to lay out. The domestic memory manufacturers that missed the opportunity quickly cooperated with the government and established investment. The “domestic memory base” has built 3 single-seat, 3D NAND Flash FAB plants with the largest clean area in the world for the development and production of 3D NAND Flash. In the global 3D NAND Flash market battle, Ziguang International first “raised the banner”. Changjiang Storage, Wuhan Xinxin, and the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences followed suit and cooperated with each other to jointly develop 3D NAND Flash technology.

In mid-November 2017, Yangtze River Storage has successfully developed 32-layer 3D NAND Flash chips, which is expected to reach volume production in 2018. Currently, Ziguang International and Yangtze River Storage have been researching 64-layer 3D NAND Flash technology, and it is expected to reach volume production in 2019.

Opportunities and challenges coexist

Of course, overtaking is still difficult. From the perspective of the development of domestic memory manufacturers, there are four main opportunities for the following opportunities:

First, the global memory chip prices continue to rise and the market is in short supply. Second, the continuous development of technologies such as smart phones, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things has led to an increase in the demand for memory chips. Third, the world's leading memory technology breakthroughs. The trend has slowed down, and various technologies have continued to mature. Fourth, the continuous introduction of national policies and the expansion of government-enterprise cooperation.

While opportunities exist, the challenges faced by domestic memory manufacturers are not small, but mainly reflected in the following three aspects:

First, the shortage of domestic memory technicians has led to a slow pace of technology research and development. Second, the continuous increase in raw material prices has led to high investment. Third, the rapid growth of memory and the risk of overcapacity are on the way.

summary:

Judging from the trend of the domestic memory market, Ziguang International and the Yangtze River Storage have become “suppressors”. In terms of the domestic memory industry, it will be a sharp sword and a hope to break the monopoly of the domestic memory market by the United States, Japan and South Korea. It can be expected that with the continuous breakthrough and maturity of domestic 3D NAND Flash technology and the continuous improvement of DRAM production, the gap between the future and the five largest memory giants will become smaller and smaller.

(Original title: Who will become the "spoiler" in the memory chip market in China?)