China-based memory startups including Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC), Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit and Innotron Memory (known previously as Hefei ChangXin or Hefei RuiLi) are all gearing up for commercial production in 2019.

YMTC under China's state-owned Tsinghua Unigroup disclosed previously the company had obtained its first orders for commercial production of over 10,00032-layer 3D NAND flash chips for use in 8GB SD memory cards. Nevertheless, YMTC's monthly output of 32-layer NAND chips has come to only about 5,000 wafers, which remains limited, according to industry sources.

For new products, YMTC is primarily investing its R&D resources in 64-layer 3D NAND flash memory, and plans to roll out the memory samples at the end of 2018, the sources said. The company is expected to significantly scale up its output after the development of its 64-layer 3D NAND products, the sources indicated. YMTC will be able to ramp up its production capacity to 100,000 wafers monthly in 2020, and will ultimately reach a total of 350,000-400,000 units when its three fabs all come online, the sources noted.

Jinhua and Innotron, which specialize in the manufacturing of DRAM memory, are both targeting commercial production next year.

Jinhua said previously the company expects to have its first-generation DRAM production technology developed jointly with United Microelectronics (UMC) ready for production at the end of 2018. It remains to be seen whether Jinhua's patent disputes with Micron Technology will impact the China-based firm's technology development schedule, though Jinhua has claimed victory in its lawsuit filed against Micron in China.

Innotron has entered trial production of 8Gb LPDDR4 chips recently, industry sources observed. The company has not confirmed whether its production already kicked off.

Innotron has previously unveiled engineering samples of its 19nm-made 8Gb DDR4 product, which will be available by the end of 2018. The company expects to begin the mass production for the chip in the first half of 2019.

By: DocMemory
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