Yangtze threatened by ban

Author: EIS Release Date: Oct 17, 2022

Yangtze Memory is among 31 Chinese companies put on the US Department of Commerce’s ‘unverifiable’ list meaning it has 60 days to permit a US investigation into whether it breached US trade regulations before it gets added to the Entity List which prohibits US companies from supplying the company with their products.

 

It is thought that Yangtze sold NAND to Huawei which, under a US embargo, cannot be supplied with chips made using US manufacturing equipment or EDA.

 

The move follows the recent departure of Yangtze’s CEO for ‘personal reasons’. Whether or not it had anything to do with the US being unable to verify Yangtze’s customer list is unknown.

 

Yangtze is reported to have had government subsidies of $24 billion and its 2022 capex budget is said to be $32.8 billion.

 

The company has 5% of the flash market with 128-layer NAND taking 40% of its  output  and 64-layer representing 60%.

 

Yangtze’s Fab1 was reported to have been running 100k wpm of NAND flash at the end of last year – at or near full capacity.

 

Yangtze’s Fab2, where equipment was being hooked up in the summer – is said to be capable of running 200k wpm and intended to  increase Yangtze’s market share to 10%.

 

However there was talk earlier in the year that the US would ban Yangtze from being supplied with equipment capable of manufacturing NAND with more than 128 layers which would kill its upgrade path.