China’s top memory chip maker YMTC takes latest step to become a global market leader, but US sanctions could derail its ambitions

Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (YMTC), China’s top memory chip maker, has taken another step to becoming a global leader in its semiconductor market segment, according to TechInsights’ latest Disruptive Event report, amid the US government’s recent actions to hold back advanced integrated circuit development on the mainland.

That conclusion was reached by TechInsights, a Canadian semiconductor and microelectronics intelligence provider, after it found that YMTC has introduced “the first 200+ layer 3D NAND Flash available on the market”, ahead of the industry’s leading memory chip makers Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology.

“At their current rate of innovation, YMTC is poised to be the uncontested global NAND Flash technology leader before 2030,” TechInsights said in the report published this week. NAND Flash is a type of non-volatile storage technology that retains data even without power, which has made it ideal for many electronics devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptop computers and solid-state drives (SSDs).

Proof of YMTC’s latest NAND Flash innovation, described in the report as Xtacking 3.0, was found in November by TechInsights, which performed reverse engineering analysis on a 2-terabyte SSD from Chinese surveillance camera maker Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co.

Founded in 2016, YMTC was credited in the report for producing “a 232-layer NAND Flash, ahead of its rivals”. This advanced technology makes the Chinese firm a “serious contender” that is “closing in on the global memory giants”, despite Covid-19 lockdowns in China, geopolitical challenges and US trade sanctions.