Since the total amount of imported chips exceeds that of oil, the chinese people's attention to chips has increased day by day. This is a good thing, but the focus is too concentrated to get a full picture. The Kirin chip we often talk about is just one of hundreds of chips in smartphones. Looking at the entire industry, it will be found that the market size of China's memory chips has grown from 127.4 billion yuan in 2014 to 269.7 billion yuan in 2019, accounting for nearly one-third. What's even more cruel is that before 2016, our self-sufficiency rate was infinitely close to zero.
Samsung
Giving money is not necessarily a memory chip that can be bought
This led to the result that Samsung frequently contaminated the fire, and Toshiba encountered a flood when he was fine. This is still a "gentle faction", the field of NAND flash memory chips, but also the hardest hit area of price increases. According to TrendForce Jibang Consulting statistics, as of December 31, 2021, the top six foreign NAND flash memory manufacturers have supplied 96% of the world's NAND flash memory chips. As a result, no matter how large the Chinese manufacturers, they are not eligible for bargaining. Once you encounter a real natural disaster, people can't sell it to you.
Toshiba
Fortunately, this "artificial knife trick" situation has been reversed in 2022. According to the news of the observer network on March 29, the domestic memory chip leader Yangtze River Storage has entered the Apple supply chain and will supply the iPhoneSE series. According to the report: Yangtze River Storage has completed the road of others for 6 years in only 3 years, upgrading from 32 layers to 64 layers, and then to 128 layers of hell difficulty technology. Combined with the original mass production of 64 layers of 3D NAND flash memory, which is the background of the top level of domestic production, this time into the fruit chain, enough to be called a milestone of domestic memory chips.
Yangtze River Storage
There are so many corners to overtake
It sounds like a bit of a curve overtaking, but it's not. Looking back at the source of the Yangtze River storage, the author saw nine deaths, so that Yang Shining, the CEO of the technology background, once burst into tears on the spot. Turning back the clock to 2006, Wuhan built a memory chip factory, called Wuhan Xinxin. Originally, I wanted to hitch a ride on SMIC and go hand in hand. As a result, Zhang Rujing was trapped in the patent trap of TSMC and could not take care of himself, and Wuhan Xinxin could only make a living by OEM. By 2010, the major customer Feisuo Semiconductor (US enterprises) went downhill, and Wuhan Xinxin only had two ways to go bankrupt and introduce foreign capital.
TSMC
In 2011, SMIC slowed down and intended to invest $1 billion to become the largest shareholder. As a result, his orders fell inexplicably, and he had to leave the market hastily in 2013. Wuhan Xinxin barely maintained until 2014, which waited for the National Integrated Circuit Fund. It's hard to have money, of course, you have to save money. After an unknown number of times of planning, Changjiang Storage Technology Co., Ltd., which specializes in NAND flash memory chips, was finally established in July 2016. This has been a decade of technical accumulation. But we said at the beginning that until 2016, our self-sufficiency rate was infinitely close to zero.
SMIC
The boy has tears and does not flick
Why? Because of the lack of money, the lack of talent, the technology is also backward. For example, the 32-layer 3D NAND FLASH chip of Yangtze River Storage was launched in 2017 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but Samsung has built a 96-layer flash memory chip in the same period, who do you want to sell? To put it bluntly, before the fourth quarter of 2020, Yangtze River Storage was playing a "stand-alone machine". R&D failed, see how much money is left in your pocket, and sum up the experience. Successful research and development, look at competitors' products and orders, sort out the mood, and continue research and development.
Yang Shining
In 2020, two big things happened. One is that in April 2020, Yangtze River Storage crossed the 96 layers and directly created 128 layers of NAND flash memory. In terms of density, it even exceeds the same specifications of Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix. But Yang Shining can not be proud, because people also have more high-end NAND flash memory, even if the mass production of 128 layers, Yangtze River storage does not belong to the first echelon. The second is that Huawei has thrown an olive branch to the Yangtze River Storage to test the water for the 64-layer NAND flash memory that has been mass-produced with the flagship Mate40. Note that this is the 64th floor that was placed in 2017.
Ren
Heroes cherish heroes
After confirming this news, Yang Shining tearfully thanked Ren Zhengfei at the microelectronics seminar held on November 18, 2020. The boy has tears, not softly, but not to the sad place. On the one hand, Yang Shining is grateful to Huawei, a domestic first-line mobile phone manufacturer, who is using practical actions to cheer himself up and regard himself as a BOE in the field of memory chips. On the other hand, Huawei is a private enterprise, which is being surrounded and suppressed all over the world, and even chooses to reach out its hand without hesitation and lift the Yangtze River storage upwards. With such a heart and courage, which lonely hero is not moved?
BOE
Looking back, you can see the dangers of the Yangtze River storage, and you can also see the three nobles waiting for him in front (in fact, more, such as the Unigroup). Among them, the most admirable is Huawei. Although Huawei's consumer business has shrunk sharply with the serious shortage of Kirin chips. But The Yangtze River Storage and BOE, which Huawei helped, have successively entered Apple's supply chain in 2022. More importantly, Huawei did not fall, but began a new journey. The author would like to call this scene, the Spirit of Huawei, which is on fire. (Li Shuangxi)