China plans to invest US$24 billion to build its first 3D NAND flash plant in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province in central China, through a private-government project. There have been some cases of acquisitions in which the Chinese government or private companies acquired foreign semiconductor companies.
However, this will be the first time for China to set up its own 3D NAND flash plant through greenfield investment. At present, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are the world’s only companies with the capacity to mass-produce 3D NAND.
The Wuhan city government announced on March 22 that it will hold a ground-breaking ceremony for the 3D NAND plant on March 28. A total of four private-government funds, including China’s state-backed semiconductor fund “National Semiconductor Industry Investment Fund,” will finance the construction project.
A Chinese semiconductor firm XMC will be responsible for production. XMC, founded in Wuhan in 2006, has produced a small quantity of flash memory chips and joined hands with Spansion, a chip design firm based in the United States, to intensify its research on 3D NAND.
XMC is expected to launch mass production of 3D NAND from 2017 at the earliest.
