2016 Flash Memory Summit Highlighted Prominence of Chinese Vendors in Flash Industry

This year’s Flash Memory Summit was held from August 9 to 11 in Santa Clara, California. “For the second consecutive year, this major Flash memory industry conference held a special forum for discussing the Chinese market, with CEO of Sage Microelectronics Dr. Jianjun Luo as the host,” noted Sean Yang, research director of DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce. “This shows that Chinese Flash memory industry is gaining greater voice and visibility within the industry.”

China’s NAND Flash consumption is expanding rapidly on account of growing demand for mobile devices, mass deployment of servers and widespread establishment of data centers. DRAMeXchange projects that China will claim 30% of the global NAND Flash consumption in 2017. The country’s share in the total consumption will continue to grow and exceed 40% in 2020. Thus, domestic demand is the driving force behind China’s efforts to build a complete NAND Flash industry chain.

“3D-NAND Flash will account for over half of the global NAND Flash market in 2018 at the latest,” said Yang. “The expansion of the 3D-NAND’s market share will spur the growth of the SSD application market and increase the capacities of SSD products. Furthermore, the global NAND Flash demand will maintain an annual growth rate of about 40% from 2016 to 2020. Therefore, China’s huge growth potential will attract many vendors related to the NAND Flash industry to enter the country. Domestic industry participants will also be very aggressive in staking a claim in the home market. "

In this year’s Flash Memory Summit, the attending Chinese companies have revealed that they focusing their efforts on two major fronts. One area involves the manufacturing of memory chips, while the other area is related to the development of controller chips and various SSD applications.

On the memory chip front, XMC is the currently the largest Chinese NAND Flash manufacturer in terms of scale and has partnered with U.S.-based Spansion to develop 3D-NAND Flash. XMC has scheduled the mass production of its first-generation 3D-NAND products in the first half of 2018. Furthermore, XMC and Tsinghua Unigroup formed Yangtze River Storage Technology this July. This new holding company is expected to facilitate the efficient integration of various aspects of NAND Flash manufacturing. “The Chinese are working to narrow the gap between them and major international memory suppliers, and this was reflected in their activities at the Flash Memory Summit,” said Yang. “Attending Chinese industry and academic representatives, for instance, made presentations on FTL technology and Fudan University’s attempt to commercialize RRAM. These topics indicated that China has a long-term strategy to develop its Flash memory industry.”

As for controller chips and application markets, First-tier Chinese controller chip makers including Sage Microelectronics, Memblaze and Huawei made an appearance at this year’s Flash Memory Summit. Anticipating strong growth for the SSD market over the next five years, many controller vendors and SSD storage providers are strengthening their R&D capabilities, especially pertaining to whole storage equipment systems and high-speed PCIe interfaces. Sage Microelectronics, Huawei and other Chinese controller chip makers want to establish their vertical industry chains, so they are developing their own IPs and building up fundamental research on memory products. “Chinese controller chip makers are accelerating their efforts to develop IPs in house or obtain them through mergers and acquisitions,” added Yang. “More cross-border deals and international partnerships are expected in this particular area of the NAND Flash industry within these two years.”