TrendForce “Gradually reduce the production of Big 3 Memory in China”
The focus is on how the U.S. Department of Commerce sanctions on semiconductor exports to China will affect the home memory industry.
It is said that the US Department of Commerce will decide whether to allow the export of foreign memory semiconductor companies to China through a separate case-by-case examination. Currently, the only foreign companies producing high-performance memory semiconductors in China are South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Samsung Electronics has a NAND flash facility in Shaanxi Province, China, and SK Hynix operates NAND and DRAM flash manufacturing facilities in Dalian and Wuxi respectively.
On the 10th, TrendForce, a market research firm, analyzed the impact of the US Department of Commerce sanctions on the memory semiconductor industry.
The companies that will be most affected by the sanctions are the Chinese memory semiconductor companies YMTC (Yangtze Memory) and Changshin Memory (CXMT).
First, in the case of DRAM, CXMT has the highest market share among Chinese companies in the domestic DRAM market.
According to TrendForce, CXMT is attempting to move from a 19nm process to a 17nm process in the second quarter of this year. However, a direct hit is inevitable as the U.S. Department of Commerce has announced that it will restrict the import of equipment to China in the case of 18nm or smaller processes in the DRAM field.
Korean companies should also be partially affected. SK hynix is manufacturing nano-class 1y DRAMs at its C2 plant in Wuxi, China. It is a large-scale facility that accounts for approximately 13% of global DRAM production. The US government is known to have consulted in advance so that Korean companies can keep existing production as is. However, in order for SK hynix to bring new DRAM equipment to the Wuxi plant, it needs to get approval on a case-by-case basis.
In the case of NAND flash, it is more stringent. Equipment used for manufacturing 3D NAND flash products with 128 layers or higher requires prior approval prior to import. In China, the main NAND flash market is YMTC. Currently, YMTC is planning to develop 3D NAND flash at 200 levels or higher, but it is expected to be heavily impacted by these penalties. In addition to Chinese companies, plans to relocate Samsung Electronics’ Xi’an plant and SK Hynix’s Dalian plant of Solidigm are also likely to have an impact.
TrendForce analyzed: “Due to the sanctions, global memory semiconductor companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will strive to reduce their production rate in China and increase their domestic production capacity.”
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