YMTC: China has the most advanced NAND flash again
The SSD memory with the highest cell density comes from YMTC. The manufacturer is ahead of Samsung, SK Hynix and other competitors.
The ZhiTai SSD TiPro9000 with the new YMTC memory.
(Image: ZhiTai / YMTC)
China has the most advanced NAND flash memory – we wrote in 2023. At that time, Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd (YMTC) had memory chips with the highest storage density at the time. Now the manufacturer is following suit.
With the TiPro9000 from YMTC subsidiary ZhiTai, the chip analysts at Techinsights have found the first model with components from the "Xtacking 4.0" generation on the Chinese market. One chip consists of 294 memory layers. Not all the so-called layers actually store data to increase production yield. Techinsights assumes that around 270 are active – even that would be a record today.
SSDs with the new memory generation from Samsung, SK Hynix, Western Digital and Kioxia are not yet available. Samsung, for example, is going to 286 layers, SK Hynix wants to sell components with 321 layers by the middle of the year.
Tiny components
A current YMTC memory chip is less than 50 mm² in size and has a memory density of around 20.5 gigabits per mm². Although these chips only store three bits per cell (Triple Level Cells, TLC), their memory density is still slightly higher than YMTC's 4-bit variant (Quadruple Level Cells, QLC) with 232 layers and 19.8 Gbit/mm².
(Image:Â Techinsights)
YMTC is sticking to its Xtacking technology of separating the actual memory chip from the logic for control. Both parts are exposed on different wafers and then stacked on top of each other. The memory chip is in turn divided into two so-called decks with 150 and 144 layers, which are, however, exposed on the same wafer.
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Chinese chip manufacturers, including YMTC, are on Western sanctions lists, driven by the USA. They therefore do not receive state-of-the-art lithography systems from ASML and do not have access to many design tools. YMTC nevertheless manages to be at the forefront of NAND flash development.
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