Today's hot spots
1. Yangtze River Storage launched UFS 3.1 universal flash memory
2. Shanghai Microsystems developed implantable transient soluble silk protein memory
3. Samsung's 3nm GAA process yield is still far below customer requirements
4. The industry says foundries are unlikely to lower their offers, TSMC: expected to maintain pricing advantages
01
Yangtze River Storage launched UFS 3.1 high-speed flash memory chip to accelerate storage upgrades in the 5G era
On April 19, Changjiang Storage announced the launch of UFS 3.1 universal flash memory - UC023. Changjiang Storage said that this marks that the Yangtze River Storage embedded product line has officially covered the high-end market, and will provide more abundant and flexible memory chip options for high-end flagship models such as mobile phones and tabletS.
It is reported that the Yangtze River Storage UC023 uses its own "crystal stack 2.0" (Xtacking 2.0) technology TLC 3D flash memory particles, further improved and optimized in terms of design and process, equipped with host fragmentation technology (HID), the introduction of random write performance optimization mechanism, to ensure ultra-low-power operation, providing 128, 256 and 512GB three mainstream capacities, has been verified by various platforms.
However, the launch of UC023 also shows that there is a gap between Yangtze River storage and the industry's leading level for more than 2 years, for specific details, please see the headlines of SunD Information today, and interpret the article on this topic in more detail.
02
Shanghai Microsystems has developed an implantable transient soluble silk protein memory
According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, transient soluble memory is an important part of skin electronics and implantable devices and information storage medium, and the device needs to have stable storage and encryption functions while achieving controllable degradation. With the rapid growth of the type and number of sensor integrations, the current storage performance of transient soluble memory is difficult to meet the requirements of multiple information types and high information storage, and it is urgent to seek further breakthroughs from the memory mechanism, materials and structure.
Following the development of the world's first repeatable eraser "silk hard disk" in 2020, Tao Hu's team, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Microsystems and Information Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, once again challenged the core problems in the field of transient soluble memory, and innovatively developed a multi-level implantable transient memory based on silk protein.
The memory adopts a new memory structure, which integrates three different types of information types of storage units, including resistive recollection device, terahertz metamaterial, and optical diffractive element, and realizes vertical high-density integration through process optimization, realizing the synchronous and stable storage of single device power-up, electromagnetic and optical information. The use of a memory material system composed of silk protein and degradable metals (magnesium, aluminum) with adjustable solubility characteristics not only ensures that each layer of storage unit has good electrical and optical properties, but also enables the memory to have a variety of controllable degradation modes such as layer-by-layer gradual degradation, multi-layer rapid degradation, and controllable layer degradation in selected areas.
03
Samsung's 3nm GAA process yield is still well below customer requirements
According to Digitimes, there are reports that Samsung Electronics' 3nm GAA process yield is still far behind its target.
According to one report, Samsung is working to improve its 3nm GAA process yield, which has just reached between 10% and 20%. The yield of Samsung's 4nm process manufacturing is also not satisfactory, only 30%-35%.
Market sources believe that Samsung's first-generation 3nm GAA process will first be used in the manufacture of Samsung's self-developed chips, and the process is unlikely to be adopted by external customers. But the source said Samsung's second-generation 3nm process will prepare chip designs for external customers and is expected to begin mass production next year. The source noted that it remains to be seen whether TSMC will face yield issues when switching to GAA transistor technology. It is possible that TSMC will have a GAA-based 2nm with the goal of starting production in 2025.
04
Industry says foundries are unlikely to lower their offers TSMC: Expected to maintain pricing advantages
IC design firm sources said that in the past five quarters, the foundry has raised prices, and its quotations have reached an all-time high. At present, these foundries intend to freeze quotations and are unlikely to reduce them.
According to Digitimes, although TSMC did not comment on its pricing details, the company's CEO Wei Zhejia recently said in the Q&A session of the company's earnings call that there are no plans to reduce prices even in the economic downturn. In response to whether TSMC will adjust prices again this year to reflect market dynamics, Wei Zhejia said: "Our pricing strategy is strategic, not opportunistic, nor short-term, and customers understand our efforts to support its growth."
Foundry sources say industrial and automotive chip orders are rapidly filling factory capacity occupied by previous consumer electronics orders. Sources said the overall foundry market is still a seller's market. Meanwhile, IC design firms are under pressure to lower chip prices as the unfavourable macro environment is weighing down demand for personal computers and other consumer electronics, and companies are gearing up to deal with the impact on profitability this year.