China’s YMTC claims 3D NAND chip breakthrough

A Chinese memory chip maker has put rivals Micron and SK hynix on notice along with claims it has self-developed technology that has improved its 3D NAND semiconductor’s performance by 50% while trimming power consumption by 25%.

Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC), founded in 2016 and based in Wuhan, on Wednesday announced its fourth-generation NAND chips, known as X3-9070, are the first in order to feature 232 levels of memory cellular material, according to Chinese mass media reports. The claimed performance improvements are usually over its third-generation chips launched in April 2020.

The announcement stated the X3-9070 could be the highest bit denseness flash product within the company’s history, enabling 1 terabyte OR TB storage capacity in an ultra-compact mono-die footprint. The press release did not, however , state exactly how many layers associated with memory cells the X3-9070 chip provides stacked.