The most important memory chips are DRAM and NAND flash. In 20 18, China imported chips of $31200 million (China imported more chips than oil at the highest), of which memory chips accounted for 39% of the total value of integrated circuits, reaching $123.06 billion. Of the 654.38+023.06 billion USD memory chips, up to 97% are DRAM and FLASH.
1968, after a long period of research, Dennard finally invented a memory cell based on single transistor design, which can store a little data. Since then, the monopoly of memory chips has gone from the United States to Japan, and now to South Korea. Samsung, Micron and Hynix have occupied 96% market share of global DRAM chips.
1984, Fujio of Toshiba first put forward the concept of ULSI, but Toshiba did not pay attention to it, and Intel developed it first. Fujio was fearless, and put forward the concept of NAND in 1987, and developed it with colleagues of 10, each with its own characteristics. It was successful in just three years.
Now flash memory technology has been developed for 26 years, and it is monopolized by Samsung, Toshiba, Micron, Hynix and Intel in the United States, Japan and South Korea.
These enterprises have mastered the pricing power of memory and flash memory and manipulated the prices at will. 20 10 Samsung and other companies illegally manipulated the price of flash memory and were fined high prices in Europe and America.
At present, the mainstream flash memory technology is 3D NADA, and 3D NAND is a new type of flash memory. By stacking memory cells together, the limitation caused by 2D or planar NAND flash memory is solved.
Ordinary NAND is a bungalow, so 3D NAND is a high-rise building, and the building area suddenly becomes larger. Theoretically, it can be stacked infinitely.
The increase in the number of layers means that the requirements for technology and materials will increase. In addition, when the number of stacked layers increases, the height of the storage stack also increases, but the thickness of each layer is decreasing.
With each upgrade, the stack thickness will become 1.8 times and the layer thickness will become 0.86 times.
Before 20 16, the memory chip market in China was zero, so it was easy to be banned by foreign countries. At this time, Ziguang Group established Changjiang Storage to conquer flash memory technology.
From 20 16 to 20117, Ziguang Group invested USD 10 billion, and the R&D team of 1000 people successfully developed the first 32-layer 3D NAND memory chip in China in two years. This indicates that China memory chips have achieved the start of 0.
20 19 May, Ziguang successfully developed a 64-layer stack flash memory chip, only behind Samsung's 96-layer stack 1 generation. You know, 64-layer stacked 3D NAND flash memory was mass-produced in 20 18 years.
According to the product plan, flash memory manufacturers such as Samsung and Toshiba will mass-produce 128-layer stacked flash memory in 2020, but Ziguang skipped the research and development of 96-layer and directly tackled the problem of 128-layer flash memory.
On April 13, 2020, Changjiang Storage Technology Co., Ltd. announced that its 128-layer QLC 3D NAND flash memory (model: X2-6070) was successfully developed, and it has passed the verification in terminal storage products such as SSD of several controller manufacturers, ahead of Samsung and other enterprises.
Changjiang Storage X2-6070 is the industry's first 128-layer QLC 3D NAND flash memory, with the highest storage density per unit area, the highest I/O transmission speed and the highest capacity of a single NAND flash memory chip.
At the same time, a single12gb (64gb) 5 128 layer TLC (3bit/cell) flash memory chip (model: X2-9060) was released to meet the needs of different application scenarios.
According to Techinsihts' 3D flash roadmap and vendor data, the core capacity of Samsung's1/kloc-0+layer (with different levels of 128 and 136) can reach QLC 1Tb. Micron's 128 layer, SK Hynix's 128 layer and Intel's 144 layer QLC flash memory are also 1Tb core capacities. Toshiba/western digital's 1 12-layer BiCS 5 technology flash stack can realize the capacity of qlc1.33tb.
In terms of capacity, X2-6070 QLC flash memory of Changjiang Storage is at the same level as Toshiba/Western Digital, which is 33% higher than other manufacturers.
In addition to capacity, it also depends on performance. The IO speed of X2-6070 is 1600Mbps, Samsung's 128 layer flash memory is 1200Mbps, and Western Digital and Toshiba are also 1200Mbps. The IO speed of other companies has no exact data, and it is estimated to be 1200Mbps.
Therefore, in terms of IO performance, X2-6070 flash memory of Changjiang Storage is also the first, ahead of other manufacturers. From the technical indicators, X2-6070 flash memory of Changjiang Storage is the first time that domestic flash memory has entered the first echelon, and it is of great significance in capacity, density and performance.
This is also the first time that China has surpassed Samsung and other memory manufacturers in flash memory specifications, which indicates that China has broken the pricing power of the United States, Japan and South Korea in the flash memory market.
The reason why Ziguang is in the same echelon as other flash memory manufacturers in flash memory specifications is that Ziguang has also developed Xtacking 3D NAND flash memory technology, which will bring unprecedented I/O high performance, higher storage density and shorter product launch cycle for 3D NAND flash memory.
Xtacking can be used to independently process peripheral circuits responsible for data I/O and memory cell operations on the wafer. This processing method is conducive to the selection of appropriate advanced logic technology, so that NAND can obtain higher I/O interface speed and more operating functions. The memory cells will also be processed independently on another wafer. When two wafers are completed separately, the innovative Xtacking technology can bond them together through millions of metal vias (vertical interconnection paths) in one processing step, and only increase the limited cost.
In 20 19, Changjiang storage upgraded Xtacking technology again and released Xtacking2.0, which will further improve the throughput of n and and improve the comprehensive performance of system-level storage.
Of course, although we have broken the pricing power of the United States, Japan and South Korea in the chip market, Ziguang still needs to increase its production capacity to achieve self-sufficiency. Ziguang has mass-produced 64-layer stacked 3D flash memory with a capacity of 256Gb. By the end of 2020, the production capacity will only be 60,000 tablets per month. Compared with the global monthly flash memory chip production capacity of about 6.5438+0.3 million chips, the domestic flash memory production capacity accounts for only 3% this year.
Samsung, Toshiba, Micron and other companies are still ahead in the production progress and capacity of 128 3D flash memory this year.
At present, Ziguang will completely catch up with the production capacity of other flash memory manufacturers in 20021year. I hope that domestic enterprises can support our own flash memory chips by then.
In addition, Ziguang is also tackling memory chips. In addition to Ziguang, Hefei Changxin is also tackling memory chips. In order to reduce the threat of US sanctions, Hefei Changxin redesigned the DRAM chip to minimize the use of American-made technology.
With the unsheathed fists of Ziguang Group and Hefei Changxin, China now doesn't have to look at western glances in the field of memory chips. In the field of semiconductors, China will develop slowly, thus building our own semiconductor ecology.