The United States tightened trade restrictions against YMTC, the largest internal supplier of the flash memory in China, which caused fears that the chip manufacturer would face serious production problems and may be forced to leave the 3D Nand market.
In December, the US Department of Trade placed 35 Chinese companies (including YMTC) into its so-called so-called The Black List is a list of organizations and companies with which the interaction of American enterprises is limited or completely excluded. Firms included in the list should get a special license for certain American technologies.
By adding YMTC to the Entity List list, the United States blocked the purchase of a huge number of materials necessary for the production of flash memory chips, unless the company receives a special license.
Taiwanese research company TrendForce stated that this solution will create YMTC “A huge technical obstacle in the development of its latest Flash-memory technologies 3D NAND, especially with an increase in the performance of its 128-layer and 232-layer flash memory. According to TrendForce, the YMTC offer will decrease by 7% in 2023.
YMTC may also lose further access to overhead equipment for the production of chips, since Japanese and Dutch suppliers may soon have to observe US sanctions.
All this means that YMTC can change its strategy. According to TrendForce, potential options may include refusal of the 3D Nand flash memory market or the transition to the production of logical semiconductors using mature processes.
The new sanctions imposed by the United States in October limited the supply of semiconductors and equipment for the production of chipping chips to 28 Chinese companies. New restrictions are designed to stop the development of supercomputers and automated work programs that designed by China.
Earlier, the Chinese giant in the field of artificial intelligence BAIDU ignored the US ban on the export of certain semiconductor technologies to China, saying that this will not have a noticeable influence on the company’s work in the field of AI and can actually speed up China’s desire for Silicon Self -sufficiency.