SMH•SMH•YMTC plans to source at least 60% of the equipment for its fourth factory from domestic suppliers, with an ambition to reach 70%. Construction in Wuhan is expected to begin next year, and the plant is planned to make NAND chips with more than 300 layers.
Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (YMTC) plans to source at least 60% of the equipment for its planned fourth factory from Chinese suppliers, with a target of as much as 70%, two people familiar with the matter said. That would exceed the just-over-half domestic share at its third factory, which is due to begin operating later this year. Construction is expected to start next year, but YMTC has held only preliminary supplier discussions and has not placed formal orders.
The Wuhan factory is expected to make NAND chips with more than 300 layers of memory cells and focus mainly on storage chips for data centres and artificial intelligence applications. When fully operational, the third, fourth and fifth factories are each expected to process about 100,000 silicon wafers a month; together, they would more than double YMTC's manufacturing capacity.
The plans come as US export controls constrain YMTC's access to some American chipmaking technology. Chinese suppliers are expected to provide more tools for production stages such as cleaning, polishing and wafer etching, while YMTC remains reliant on overseas suppliers for some sophisticated equipment, including lithography and inspection tools. The higher local-content target could benefit Chinese equipment makers including Naura Technology Group and Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment.
