Dawn of domestic storage

Dawn of domestic storage

WSTS data shows that the global storage market size in 2021 was $ 158.2 billion, an increase of 34.6 % year -on -year. In 2022, the global semiconductor market size will increase by 8.8 % to US $ 60.149 billion, of which the storage category will increase to 8.55 % to US $ 171.682 billion, accounting for 28.5 % of the entire semiconductor market.

Among the many storage categories, the largest market size is DRAM and NAND Flash. In 2021, the global DRAM market size accounted for about 56 % of the entire storage market (about 86.9 billion U.S. dollars), the NAND FLASH market size accounted for about 41 % of the entire storage market (approximately US $ 63.6 billion), and the Nor Flash market accounted for about the entire storage market. 2 % of about $ 3.1 billion), other storage (EEPROM, EPROMROM, SRAM, etc.) totaling a total of 1 % (about $ 1.6 billion). In 2022, the DRAM and NAND flash memory markets will increase by 25 %, 24 % to $ 118 billion, and $ 83 billion, respectively, with a record high.

Big cakes in the domestic storage market

From the perspective of market demand, China has become one of the most important demand markets in the world. CFM flash memory market data shows that the sales scale of DRAM and NAND Flash in China accounts for more than 30 % of the world’s market share.

In addition, with the transformation and consumption upgrade of the national economic structure, the demand for electronic products and services is also increasing. Storage as a key component of electronic products benefits from the entire social information process. In the future, with the rapid development of artificial intelligence, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, big data and other industries, the continuous improvement of storage demand will provide more room for storage.

The cycle of storage demand expansion has brought opportunities to domestic enterprises. After all, in an incremental market, there are more opportunities for trial and error, and in a saturated market, opportunities are minimal. This is essential for the current Chinese enterprises.

With the news of expansion, capital increase, and IPO, domestic storage is emitting its own light.

Domestic storage leading Yangtze River storage is expanding to prepare production capacity. According to previous news, the Yangtze River Storage has been prepared in the second phase of the storage base project as early as 2020. It is currently accelerating. It is expected to be put into production in the next two years. For 100,000 pieces, after two years, the NAND Flash chip production capacity will be doubled.

In terms of production capacity, Changxin is not far behind. According to public information, Changxin achieved the target of 45,000 wafers / month, 60,000 wafers / month in 2020 and 2021, respectively. The production capacity target is 300,000 wafers / month. As of 2021, the total global DRAM production capacity is about 1.5 million pieces / month. It is predicted that at the end of 2022, it will increase to about 1.6 million pieces per month. At that time, the 120,000 pieces of production capacity stored in Changxin will receive about 8 % of the global market share.

Xintianxia, which is the main business, submitted the IPO application of GEM. On April 28, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange officially accepted the application of the IPO listing of Xintianxia. Xintianxia said that the company’s fundraising funds will be closely focused on the company’s main business, mainly investing in the R & D and industrialization projects of NOR FLASH products, industrialization projects of NANDFLASH products, industrialization projects, storage R & D center construction projects, and supplementary funds. Among them, the NOR FLASH product research and development and industrialization project intends to further develop the Nor Flash product of 55nm / 50nm / 4xnm process on the basis of the company’s existing NOR FLASH product line to complete the iterative upgrade of product process technology. NAND FLASH Product R & D and upgrading and industrialization project intends to develop a single -chip SPI NAND product and ultra -low -power SLC NAND Flash products based on the company’s existing SLC NAND Flash product line, forming a richer SLC NAND Flash Product Series.

On the evening of May 22, Well shares announced that it intends to increase its holdings of Beijing Junzheng shares for no more than 4 billion yuan. After the increase in holdings, the cumulative number of Beijing Junzheng shares does not exceed 50 million shares, which does not exceed 10.38 % of Beijing Junzheng’s total share capital. This transaction constitutes a connected transaction and does not constitute a major asset reorganization. According to Well’s announcement in the announcement, Beijing Junzheng’s storage chip has a good customer base in the automotive market, and the company is a leading company in the global car CIS. In the future, the company and Beijing Junzheng have a larger business strategic cooperation opportunity.

Expansion of production, capital increase, IPO, domestic storage at the time.

Ghosts of domestic storage and foreign abroad?

Nand

NAND flash memory has long been “dominated” by several large factories. According to CMF data, in Q4 in 2021, manufacturers occupying the TOP6 of the NAND flash memory market share in turn are: Samsung (34 %), armor (19 %), SK Hynix (14 %), Western Data (14 %), Micron (10 (10) (10 %), Intel (5 %), and the market share left to other manufacturers is only 3 %.

Judging from the technical route of NAND flash memory, from 2D to 3D, major manufacturers have continued to develop in a higher direction of stacking layers. At present, the industry’s more advanced and mass -produced NAND flash memory is 176 layers of flash memory. Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung have also achieved the mass production of 176 layers of NAND flash memory. In addition, Micron has solemnly announced the industry’s first 232 -layer 3D NAND storage solution, and high -profile leading NAND flash memory broke into the 200 -story war. In terms of NAND flash memory, the most advanced technology is the Yangtze River Storage. The 128 -layer NAND flash memory has been mass -produced. According to industry insiders, the Yangtze River Storage has delivered a 192 -layer 3D NAND flash memory sample to a few customers.

DRAM

Look at DRAM. The global market of DDRM shows a clear three -legged situation. In terms of market share, according to IC Insights, TOP3 occupied the DRAM market revenue list in 2021 is Samsung (44 %) and SK Hynix (27.7 %) , Micron (22.8 %), the three major suppliers accounted for 94 % of the DRAM market share in 2021.

After the DRAM process process enters 20nm, the manufacturing difficulty is getting higher and higher. The top three manufacturers in the world — Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron entered the 1xnm (16nm -19nm) stage in 2016-2017, and entered the 1YNM (14nm -16nm) stage from 2018 to 2019, and entered 1ZNM (12nm -14nm) in 2020 era. At present, memory chips enter the fourth stage of 1ANM (10nm). At present, the domestic Changxin Storage is still in the 1xnm (16nm -19nm) stage, and there is still a certain gap with the leading factory.

In general, the development of the domestic storage industry was relatively late. The Yangtze River Storage and Changxin Storage were established in 2016, which added the gap in China’s core supply links in the NAND Flash and DRAM markets. Although it has not reached a market share like a faucet, it has narrowed the gap with the industry’s advanced level. It should be noted that technology is still the first productive forces of the semiconductor industry. Semiconductor products update and technical upgrades are faster. Continuous development of new technologies and launching new products are important means for various manufacturers to maintain their advantages in the market.

Two major problems trapped in domestic storage and development

At present, domestic storage development should also solve two major problems: first, there are many FABLESS models, and it is difficult to deal with the shortage of supply chain production capacity; second, the cost does not have advantages.

From the perspective of storage production, IDM is undoubtedly a good form. The leading manufacturers stored abroad are the IDM model, and they all have their own wafer factories. They can adjust their production capacity in time according to their own production needs, and have more autonomy. However, due to the particularity of the integrated circuit industry, the cost of establishing wafer factories is quite high, so for domestic non -storage factories, Fabless is actually the best choice after their weighing pros and cons. However, once the production capacity is short, or the adjustment of the price, it may lead to adverse effects on the company’s daily operations and profitability of the company.

Another is that the storage chip industry has the characteristics of capital and technology. Due to the high degree of product standardization, the high degree of industry concentration, and the scale effects of the scale, the storage industry giants and the industry first entered, leading the latecomers in terms of scale and process maturity, have obvious advantages in terms of cost. Most Fabless manufacturers, because the size of the foundries is small, does not have a strong bargaining ability, resulting in a higher cost of the company.

The domestic storage industry is also facing the dilemma of insufficient investment. The technological and production capacity expansion of the semiconductor industry requires a large amount of investment. Freedom of investment.

Domestic storage manufacturers’ breakthrough blade

With the continuous development of the domestic semiconductor industry, storage manufacturers represented by the Yangtze River Storage and Hefei Changxin have gradually shown.

Yangtze River Storage

The Yangtze River Storage is the domestic light of 3D NAND. It continues to shorten the distance with the world’s leading level, and it is expected to lead the rise of the domestic NAND industry. The Yangtze River Storage has achieved a leap from 32 to 64 floors to 128 floors in just 3 years. Recently, according to industry insiders, the Yangtze River Storage has delivered a 192 -layer 3D NAND flash memory sample developed to a few customers.

In September 2019, the company also innovated the use of Xtacking? 1.0 architecture flash memory technology, successfully mass production of 64 -layer TLC 3D NAND flash memory. Different from the traditional 3D NAND architecture, Xtacking? Technology belongs to independent innovation. In the traditional NAND architecture, the peripheral circuit and storage unit operated by i / O and memory units are manufactured on the same wafer. In the Xtacking? Architecture of the Yangtze River, the peripheral circuit operated by i / O and the memory unit was produced on a wafer, and the storage unit was processed independently on another wafer. ? The technology can be connected to the two -key key through one processing steps to connect the two keys through billions of metal vertical network channels and packaged into the same chip.

In addition, the technical route of the Yangtze Storage Jumping has become a “good story” now. The Yangtze River Storage decided to skip the 96th floor of the industry and directly develop the 128 -layer 3D NAND.

Changxin Reserve

Changxin Storage was established in May 2016. Since its establishment, the company has been committed to DRAM’s research and development and mass production since its establishment, and has successfully launched DDR4, LPDDR4 and LPDDR4X facing the mainstream market. The yield is 70-75 %, and the development of low -power, high -speed LPDDR5DRAM products will be promoted in the next 2-3 years.

From a technical point of view, the core technology of Changxin Storage comes from the DRAM patent left by Qimengda. Later, in order to avoid the patent risk of patented, Changxin Storage invested $ 2.5 billion in R & D expenses to redesign the original chip architecture. Based on this patented technology, Changxin Storage successfully mass -produced DDR4 and LPDDR4 with 19NM processes, becoming the fourth manufacturer of the world’s fourth DRAM products to use less than 20nm. It is currently the only manufacturer in mainland China to independently produce DRAM.

Fujian Jinhua

In the past, the Yangtze River Storage, Changxin Storage, and Jinhua Fujian were known as “China Storage Sanxiong”. In 2016, Fujian Jinhua and UMC signed a technical cooperation agreement, Fujian Jinhua commissioned Lianian Electric Development DRAM -related technologies, and the technical achievements developed by both parties were jointly owned by both parties. Because of this project, Fujian Jinhua was involved in the patent battle with Micron in 2017. Micron accused UMC and Fujian Jinhua stole its own memory chip technology. At the end of January 2019, UMC withdrew from the Jinhua DRAM project in Fujian. Until November 2021, UMC and Micron reached a century of reconciliation, and the current review of Fujian Jinhua has not yet ended.

Although it was suppressed, Fujian Jinhua was still indomitable. In early 2021, the Fujian Department of Industry and Information Technology released a news that Quanzhou Jinhua successfully developed a 25nm memory chip with independent property rights and trial production in small batches.

Wuhan Xinxin

Wuhan Xinxin was established in Wuhan in 2006 and is an advanced integrated circuit R & D and manufacturing enterprise. Wuhan Xinxin has two 12 -inch wafer fab, and the production capacity of each wafer fab can reach 30,000 pieces + / month. In the field of NOR FLASH, Wuhan Xinxin has accumulated more than ten years of manufacturing experience, providing high -performance NOR Flash technical services from 65nm to 45nm. It is one of China’s advanced Norflash wafer manufacturers.

In addition, Wuhan Xinxin also launched its own brand Spinor Flash product.

Zhaoyi Innovation

From the perspective of the three mainstream products of storage chips, Zhaoyi Innovation has formed a full platform layout of NOR, NAND and DRAM’s three major storage chips. Its NOR Flash products cover most of the market capacity types. Its NAND Flash products belong to SLC NAND. In 2016, Zhaoyi Innovation launched the first DRAM product GDQ2BFAA series, marking the official enrollment of the mainstream storage market of DRAM. It is worth mentioning that in the Chinese market, Zhaoyi’s Nor Flash market share ranked first. In 2021, shipments were 3.288 billion.

In addition, Zhaoyi Innovation also integrated the DRAM business through the capital increase of Changxin’s parent company Ruili. In December 2020 and September 2021, the company integrated a total of 800 million yuan to Ruili.

Ziguang Guoxin

As a subsidiary of Ziguang Guowei, Ziguang Guoxin is mainly engaged in storage design and development, the sales of its own brand storage chip products, and integrated circuit design and development and testing services. “Focus on high -tech enterprises”, a complete and advanced DRAM storage test analysis engineering center has been built. At the same time, it has the world’s mainstream dynamic random storage and glitter storage design and development technology and experience.

Worldwide

Xintianxia is one of the earliest manufacturers in the industry to provide SPI NANDFLASH. The company’s existing products include Norflash and SLC NAND Flash, which are widely used in consumer electronics, network communications, Internet of Things, industrial and medical and other fields.

Beijing Junzheng

Beijing Junzheng’s storage business mainly includes three categories: SRAM, DRAM and Flash. The company’s DRAM product development is mainly aimed at professional -level applications with high -tech barriers, which can meet the requirements of industrial, medical, main communication and vehicle regulations, and have the characteristics of stable work in extreme environments, energy conservation and consumption reduction. The company also includes the development of different types of products of different types of different types of products from different types of products such as DDR2, LPDDR2, DDR3 to DDR4, and LPDDR4. According to the progress of different products, some new products are still in the research and development stage. For the production of engineering samples, some new products have completed the production of engineering samples and carried out mass production work according to the test results.

Beijing Junzheng’s Flash product line includes the current mainstream Nor Flash and NAND Flash.

Dongxin semiconductor

The main products of Dongxin Semiconductor are non -easy -to -miss storage chips NAND Flash, Nor Flash, and DRAM.

Dongxin Semiconductor NAND Flash’s core technical advantages are obvious, especially SPI NAND Flash. The company’s NANDFLASH is widely used in communication equipment, security monitoring, wearable equipment and mobile terminals with the characteristics of rich product category, low power consumption, and high reliability. Fields. The SPI NOR FLASH storage capacity covers 2MB to 256MB and supports a variety of data transmission modes. At present, the company has provided products for end customers such as Samsung Electronics, LG, Chuanyin Holdings, and Goer.

DDR3 series products are widely used in the fields of communication equipment, mobile terminals, etc.; LPDDR series products are suitable for use in smart terminals, wearable devices and other products.

Juchen Semiconductor

Most of the revenue of Juchen Semiconductor comes from EEPROM products. Compared with NOR FLASH, this type of product is relatively small and the number of rubbing times is high. It is used in smartphone cameras, LCD panels, Bluetooth modules, communication, computers and peripherals, medical instruments, white home appliances, automotive electronics, industrial control and other fields.
In addition, the company is actively developing the NOR Flash business.

Hengshuo Semiconductor

The main product of Hengshuo Semiconductor is NOR Flash. In 2016, the company had successfully mass produced a number of 65nm serial Norflash products; at the end of 2018, the company completed the entire production line layout of NOR FLASH under different voltages; in 2020, Hengshui Semiconductor launched a 50nm serial 128 MB NOR Flash.

Conclusion

The domestic storage industry has developed rapidly and has its own focus. It is also shortening the gap with international manufacturers step by step. However, at the same time, we must also clearly realize that compared with foreign technology, the overall level of related industries in my country is still not enough. Short is short. It is still difficult to reverse the industrial structure led by international giants during time. If you want to be evenly matched with international opponents, it will still need time and technology to precipitate.