China Microelectronics wins bid for 9 Yangtze Memory etching machines to boost domestic flash memory

Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Tsinghua Unigroup, officially mass-produced China's first 64-layer stacked 3D flash memory with a capacity of 256Gb and TLC chip in September 2019. In 2020, Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. will further increase its production capacity, reaching 60,000 wafers per month by the end of the year, which is 10 times the initial production capacity.

The expansion of production capacity will require more equipment, including domestic equipment. On January 2, Shanghai AMEC announced that it had won the bid for 9 etching machines, while they only won 13 in the whole of 2019.

Previously, SMIC's 5nm etching machine has also entered TSMC's supply chain. Dr. Zhiyao Yin, chairman and CEO of SMIC Equipment, pointed out that SMIC is following TSMC's development in accordance with Moore's Law. The latter's 3nm process has been under development for more than a year and is expected to be put into trial production in early 2021. SMIC is also following this route and has already achieved 5nm.