3d nand memories: china will start manufacturing in 2017

Yangtze River Storage Technology (YRST) company will be the first to manufacture the new 3D NAND memory in China. The manufacture of the first 3D NAND memory wafers will begin in 2017 and they hope to produce this type of 32-level memory.

They will make 300, 000 3D NAND memory wafers

3D NANDs are capable of containing multiple layers of memory within the same silicon, so higher capacity SSD drives can be achieved in the same space. Companies like Intel-Micron or A-DATA already have this type of memory on the market. This would be the first time that a Chinese manufacturer starts producing NAND Flash and DRAM memories.

The total investment of the YRST company amounts to 24, 000 million dollars to complete the factory and it is already planned to expand the facilities in 2018 and a last phase of expansion in 2019. This was achieved not only by the YRST itself, but also by a investment by the Chinese Government itself and an alliance with the leading semiconductor company XMC. The sources also indicate that there is support from Tsinghua Unigroup with the collaboration of Micron, so there are not a few who are involved in this business.

YRST is expected to be able to manufacture around 300, 000 wafers a month, which will serve to meet the growing demand for NAND memories used in SSDs and Smartphones. The news is important since it would help to lower the costs of this type of units in the medium term. One more step to begin to retire the hard drives that have been with us for decades.