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Entity listing puts YMTC’s NAND
Flash future at risk: TrendForce
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Market intelligence
firm TrendForce says that Chinese
memory maker YMTC is now at risk of
exiting the market for 3D NAND Flash
products by 2024 following its formal
placement on the U.S. Entity List.
Reviewing transactions
From this point forward, the Commerce
Department will be reviewing and approv-
ing individual transactions related to the
exportation, re-exportation, and sales of
equipment, technologies, and other relat-
ed goods from the US to YMTC.
With acquisitions of equipment parts and
technical support from its U.S. partners
becoming very difficult and prolonged,
YMTC is going to be severely constrained
from raising its bit output.
Hence, its foothold on the market for 3D
NAND Flash products is expected to weak-
en as time goes by.
Technical obstacles
TrendForce points out that without the
support of the key equipment providers,
YMTC is now facing a huge technical ob-
stacle in the development of its latest 3D
NAND Flash technology known as Xtacking
3.0.
In particular, raising yield rate for the 128L
and 232L processes is going to be ex-
tremely challenging for the Chinese mem-
ory manufacturer.
Taking account of this latest escalation in
the U.S.-China trade dispute, TrendForce
has further corrected down its projections
on YMTC’s supply bit growth rate and the
total NAND Flash supply bit growth rate for
next year.
JANUARY 2023
YMTC supply bits were initially forecast
to grow by 60% YoY for 2023. However,
there was a massive downward correction
that put its growth rate at just 18%.
Decline forecast
Now, YMTC is forecasted to post a YoY de-
cline of 7%, which is a complete reversal
from the earlier projections. International
clients are gradually reallocating orders to
other NAND Flash suppliers
Besides the impact of the Entity List on
YMTC’s output growth, TrendForce has also
observed that NAND Flash buyers outside
China now harbor significant reservations
about adopting YMTC’s technology.
A U.S.-based smartphone brand has held-
off on procuring mobile storage solutions
from YMTC.
At the same time, PC OEMs that were pre-
viously going to qualify YMTC’s client SSDs
have temporarily halted the customer
sampling and adoption process. Based on
the latest investigation,
Operations may be limited
TrendForce believes that YMTC will likely
be limited to operating only within Main-
land China in the future.
Moreover, since the Chinese memory man-
ufacturer is being seriously hindered in its
efforts to advance towards higher-layer 3D
NAND technologies, it will eventually lose
out on opportunities to gain more market
share via capacity expansion.
After its placement on the Entity List, YMTC
could be further prevented from acquiring
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