China’s top flash memory chipmaker sees no easy way to replace US chipmaking gear, underscoring how a further crackdown on the supply of US technology would devastate the local semiconductor industry.
Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (長江存儲) gets more than 80 percent of its equipment from the US and Japan, said Zheng Jiuli (鄭久利), vice president in charge of supply chain management.
While some Chinese suppliers have made breakthroughs in areas, including etching and coating, there are not enough local alternatives to replace everything, he added.
“Long-term investments in innovation and R&D [research and development] have led to technological advantages” at US and Japanese suppliers, Zheng said.
“This is also the reason why their products are currently in the mainstream and are difficult to replace,” Zheng added.
The deficit of basic chipmaking equipment complicates Beijing’s ambitions to reduce its reliance on its geopolitical rival.
China has rolled out a number of measures to boost its domestic chip industry, including creating a US$29 billion semiconductor investment fund, and Beijing is planning to provide broad support for so-called third-generation semiconductors in its next five-year plan, Bloomberg News reported last week.
The manufacturing of these chipsets, which are mainly made of materials such as silicon carbide and gallium nitride, only has limited exposure to US vendors, Citigroup analysts have said.
Yangtze Memory has not set a target for domestic procurement, Zheng said, adding that it would be “unscientific” to do so.
The company operates a US$22 billion facility in Wuhan that is by far China’s most advanced factory for 3D NAND, the latest iteration of storage used in smartphones and high-end computing.
In Italy’s storied gold-making hubs, jewelers are reworking their designs to trim gold content as they race to blunt the effect of record prices and appeal to shoppers watching their budgets. Gold prices hit a record high on Thursday, surging near US$5,600 an ounce, more than double a year ago as geopolitical concerns and jitters over trade pushed investors toward the safe-haven asset. The rally is putting undue pressure on small artisans as they face mounting demands from customers, including international brands, to produce cheaper items, from signature pieces to wedding rings, according to interviews with four independent jewelers in Italy’s main
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has talked up the benefits of a weaker yen in a campaign speech, adopting a tone at odds with her finance ministry, which has refused to rule out any options to counter excessive foreign exchange volatility. Takaichi later softened her stance, saying she did not have a preference for the yen’s direction. “People say the weak yen is bad right now, but for export industries, it’s a major opportunity,” Takaichi said on Saturday at a rally for Liberal Democratic Party candidate Daishiro Yamagiwa in Kanagawa Prefecture ahead of a snap election on Sunday. “Whether it’s selling food or
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
RSS