In 2018, Dong Mingzhu once released a bold statement in front of CCTV reporters: "Even if it is 50 billion, we must build the core!" ”
But at that time, some people in the industry made a different voice about it. Some experts pointed out that perhaps for many manufacturing industries, 50 billion is a huge investment that can subvert the industry, except for the semiconductor industry.
After 5 years of polishing, a Chinese semiconductor company founded in 2016 only "burned" 150 billion yuan, which ended the monopoly of Samsung, Hynix, Micron and other companies in the field of memory chips, and cut out a 5% share. This company is the Yangtze River Storage, which is controlled by Tsinghua University. Some people may ask, is it proud to burn 150 billion to get 5% of the market share? Be proud indeed!
Because, compared with Huawei's annual research and development expenditure of more than 100 billion yuan to maintain the position of the first echelon of global communication equipment, only 150 billion yuan can be among the first line of the industry, and Yangtze River Storage has indeed earned. So, is the semiconductor industry really so "burning money"?
First, the investment of 152 billion US dollars, Zhang Zhongmou still can't see it
Since China has made every effort to conquer the chip industry, the "predecessors" in the semiconductor field have poured cold water. Among them, Zhang Zhongmou of TSMC once provoked that "China cannot build a lithography machine with the strength of the whole country." From the perspective of the Chinese people, this old gentleman poured cold water on China's chip industry every three to five minutes. In fact, Zhang Zhongmou not only poured cold water on China, but even the United States did not let go.
In order to attract the return of the chip manufacturing industry, the United States and the local semiconductor giant Intel jointly launched a $152 billion chip investment plan. In this regard, Zhang Zhongmou complained: "The United States does not have a complete chip supply chain, and the production cost is too high." ”
In the semiconductor industry, huge investment is only one of the tickets, but also the accumulation of cutting-edge talents and technical patents, in addition to equipment installation, commissioning, tape-out need a lot of time. Even if the US technology company has the highest market value in the world, and the US company controls nearly 24% of the equity of asmography machine giant ASML, it is still difficult to build the whole semiconductor industry chain from 0 to 1 in the United States.
In this regard, many people have questioned, since the United States can not build a complete semiconductor industry chain in the short term, why did the mainland not lay out in the semiconductor field as early as possible? In fact, the layout of China's semiconductor industry is not only early enough, but even once far surpassed Japan and South Korea.
Second, China's semiconductor industry "disappeared in 20 years"
In 1956, the Chinese Semiconductor Professional Group was established in Peking University, led by Huang Kun and Xie Xide, pioneers of semiconductor physics who returned from overseas.
Huang Kun was a leading scientist in the field of international solid state physics at that time, and many researchers engaged in "two bombs and one satellite" walked out of his classroom.
Professor Sheaid studied theoretical physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, and became the first female university president in New China after returning to China. While building a semiconductor research institute for China, the two also co-authored the book "Semiconductor Physics", which provides the world's most cutting-edge theoretical guidance for China's basic physics talents. At this time, South Korea's Samsung was still selling textiles, and Zhang Zhongmou was still 30 years away from starting TSMC.
However, although China's semiconductor industry has made a good start, it is a pity that due to special historical reasons, there have been "20 years of disappearance". At the same time, in the 60s and 80s of the last century, the international semiconductor industry completed a nirvana breakthrough every 2 to 3 years. By the 1990s, when the mainland picked up the semiconductor industry again, the gap with countries such as the United States and Japan had widened to 30 years.
For a long time since then, in the semiconductor industry, domestic companies have not even been able to resist market-oriented competition. For example, the "predecessor" of Yangtze River Storage, Huahong NEC, who once focused on memory, did not wait for the ultimate showdown with Samsung, but has fallen into the Internet industry bubble at the turn of the century. This is also why, in recent years, when we see that the United States needs to personally change the industry rules and stop Huawei from rising up, we will burst out of our hearts with an irrepressible sense of pride: because in the semiconductor field, China is recovering the "20 years of disappearance".
At this time of rapid iteration and change of the global industry, Yangtze River Storage, a young Chinese semiconductor company founded in 2016, has stepped onto the world stage.
Third, the yield rate is 99.99%, where is the Yangtze River storage from 0 to 1?
Since the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2000 and the accumulation of 20 years of Accumulation by China Semiconductor, Unigroup and the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund jointly funded the establishment of Yangtze River Storage, with innovative Xtacking technology to break the monopoly of the hard disk storage market by Samsung, Hynix, Micron and other companies, and successfully won 5% of the market share. The victory of Yangtze River Storage lies not only in the "State-oriented TiPro7000" SSD it developed, which is almost equal in performance with Samsung SSD SSDs, but also in the Xtacking crystal stack architecture flash memory process yield of 99.99% of Yangtze River Storage.
For a long time, in order to suppress the latecomers, the first-mover companies often use patents to establish technical barriers. Some time ago, Micron Technology, which went to the United States with its core team, drove Fujian Jinhua, a brother company of Yangtze River Storage, out of the market through the crime of "property theft". However, when this trick is used again for Yangtze River storage, it is ineffective.
The first condition for technical barriers is that you have to invent them first. In 2018, the successful Xtacking flash memory technology developed by Yangtze River Storage made the comprehensive speed of NAND write and erase reach 3Gbp/s, which was 1.5 times faster than the V-NAND 3D stacked flash memory speed produced by Samsung in the same year. According to Samsung's research and development plan, to launch the same performance level of flash technology as the Yangtze River Xtacking, it needs to wait until 2025. That is to say, with first-hand technological innovation, Yangtze River Storage has directly led the industry hegemony for nearly 7 years. If the new flash memory technology launched by Samsung, Micron and other companies has more "similarities" with Xtacking, I am afraid that it will be the turn of Yangtze River Storage to wave the "patent stick" to Samsung and other companies.
The success of Yangtze River Storage means that the mainland has reached the world's advanced level in the field of memory chips. However, the success of chip research and development is only the first step, and then we have to face the problem of "who to sell". In this regard, Yangtze River Storage also has its own unique advantages. In the 1980s, Japanese semiconductors squeezed Intel out of the storage market by relying on "always 10% cheaper than its competitors", and Yangtze River Storage also inherited this masterpiece. According to Pacific Computer data, in each echelon of products, Yangtze River Storage is significantly lower than Samsung's price. In the price of 1T storage products, the difference between the two is more than 1,000 yuan.
IV. Conclusion
While having performance and price advantages, Yangtze River Storage has also gained a hardcore ally: Huawei.
While many domestic mobile phone manufacturers are waiting and watching the Yangtze River storage, Huawei has taken action. In 2020, Huawei's Mate40 series took the lead in carrying Yangtze River storage flash memory products, providing valuable and critical benefits for Yangtze River Storage to further expand the domestic and international markets.
When the plant was completed in 2017, Yangtze River Storage once played a huge slogan: "Independent core, industry to serve the country". Today, there is no doubt that the Yangtze River Storage, which was established for only 6 years, has done it!