Memory chips, as an indispensable part of semiconductor components, are widely used in memory, consumer electronics, intelligent terminals, and other fields. The development of big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things will play a more important role in the whole industrial chain. In the past, China relied on imports for memory chips, with Samsung, Toshiba, SK Hynix, Micron, and other companies from the United States, Japan, and South Korea dominating the market. In recent years, the country listed the integrated circuit industry as an important new strategic industry during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, and the home-made “memory chip” began to rise gradually, with Changjiang Storage, Jinhua, Changxin, and other domestic enterprises making breakthroughs in technology, contributing their own strength for “China Core”.
China is in the process of shifting from low-end manufacturing to high-tech industrialization, and industrial transformation is imminent. Informatization has become a part of the national strategy, and memory chips play a key role in promoting national informatization.
What Are Memory Chips?
Memory chips refer to the specific application of the concept of embedded system chips in the storage industry. Whether system chips or memory chips, they achieve multi-function and high performance by embedding software in a single chip and supporting multiple protocols, hardware, and different applications.
Memory chips can be divided into volatile memory and non-volatile memory. At present, the mainstream memory is DRAM and NAND Flash, which account for more than 90% of the memory market.
The function of memory chips
The function of memory chips is to provide high-quality support for various applications such as access performance, storage protocol, and storage media. With the big data, cloud computing, and other more complex scenarios, higher requirements on memory chip performance, also provide opportunities for domestic memory chip enterprises.
In addition to the basic storage functions, the SoC with various processor cores and FPGA products with more processing capabilities will become the new market demand in the future. For the storage market, using FPGA to implement embedded solutions can be customized to realize its system processing capacity, peripheral circuit, and storage interface, and quickly improve the core competitiveness of products.
The importance of developing memory chips
The significance of memory chip research and development lies not only in its function and function but also in at least three layers of significance for the country to develop the memory chip industry.
➡️Reduce the cost, improve the domestic market share
A few years ago, the price of memory has been the “secret trouble” of many domestic electronic manufacturers, because the localization of the heart chip is very low, leading to the crazy price of many foreign manufacturers, the whole industry chain has a great impact. And it is the pressure of foreign companies, more firm domestic manufacturers to develop their own memory chips determined to ungroup as a representative of the enterprise invested in several memory manufacturers.
➡️Master core technology and no longer rely on others
Memory chips are also known as the “food” of electronic products, generally accounting for about 20% of the product cost. In the highly competitive electronic industry chain, enterprises without core technologies are easy to be “stuck”. After all, no one wants such things as “ZTE” to happen again. Even though China is the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer, memory chips are less than 10 percent self-sustaining, a major drawback in a volatile global trade situation.
➡️Contribute to the rise of “major countries” and raise our voice in the world
Since ancient times, China has regarded itself as a “big country”. Under the situation of the second largest GDP in the world, industrialization upgrading has become one of the main tasks at present. Chip technology, as the top technology, not only earns the most profits for enterprises but also improves the country’s voice. The United States, for example, is the market leader in computer chips, communications chips, and memory chips, so it has the leverage to tell many countries what to do.
Current situation of domestic memory chips IN CHINA
In recent years, with the efforts of the government and enterprises, the domestic memory chip market shows a stable and rising situation, according to the General Administration of Customs data, in the first quarter of 2017, China’s chip import value was 50.516 billion DOLLARS, up 7.62% year on year. Enterprises have increased research and development and factory construction, promoting the mass production of Chinese memory chips, represented by Changjiang Storage, Jinhua, Changxin, etc.
It is reported that not long ago, Changjiang storage 3D NAND flash obtained the first order, a total of 10,776 chips, which will be used for 8GB USD memory card products; Next year, CHEUNG Kong Storage will also start 64 layers of stacked flash. In January this year, Hefei DRAM Phase I plant construction was completed and equipment installation began. The production of 8GB DDR4 engineering samples will start at the end of the year, and it is expected to achieve a monthly capacity of 20,000 pieces by the end of 2019. In April this year, Jinhua integrated circuit memory production line project steel structure lifting ceremony.
Chinese researchers are also making breakthroughs in cutting-edge memory chip technology. Recently, China invested 13 billion yuan to build PCM phase change memory, which is 1,000 times better than ordinary memory chips. A team led by Zhang Wei and Zhou Peng, professors from the School of Microelectronics at Fudan University, developed a new two-dimensional non-volatile memory chip that is 1 million times longer than a traditional two-dimensional memory chip and takes 156 times longer to refresh than memory.
Although domestic memory chip manufacturers have made some achievements, we have to be clearly aware of the core technology, market share, talent reserve, and other aspects, the gap is still very large. In recent years, many foreign manufacturers suppress domestic manufacturers with intellectual property rights, which requires enterprises to have their own core technology.
Localization is a part of the future national strategy of memory chips, enterprises except behind closed doors, also have to focus on policy, and market change, through the guidance of the industrial chain to meet more the size of the application, only make related industry chain enterprises enjoy the economic benefits, to exert the value of memory chips, memory chips to make the most market value.
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