YMTC plans major fab expansion
Chinese NAND maker YMTC plans two additional fabs on top of one due this year, which would more than double its production capacity when all three are running. Reports tie that expansion to China’s broader subsidy push and efforts to reduce reliance on foreign semiconductor tech (reuters.com, ).
Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. is preparing two more chip plants in Wuhan, a buildout that would take its memory output far above today’s level. (reuters.com) People familiar with the plan told Reuters that one new factory is due to start operating in 2026 and two more are now being planned, with no target opening dates disclosed for the later pair. Morgan Stanley estimated YMTC’s two existing Wuhan plants could produce 160,000 12-inch wafers a month at the end of 2024, and said capacity was set to rise by another 65,000 wafers this year. (reuters.com) NAND flash is the storage inside solid-state drives, phones, and data-center gear, and YMTC is China’s main domestic producer in that market. UBS estimated the company held an 11.8% share of the global NAND market in 2025, according to Reuters. (reuters.com) The expansion comes as Beijing keeps steering money into chipmaking to cut reliance on foreign suppliers and foreign tools. Tom’s Hardware reported on April 14 that Chinese state support for semiconductors over the past decade totaled about 3.6 times the level of comparable United States support. (tomshardware.com) YMTC has been under heavier pressure since December 2022, when the United States Commerce Department added the company to its Entity List, restricting access to American technology. Reuters said that pressure pushed YMTC to deepen work with local equipment makers including Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment, or AMEC. (reuters.com) That shift also tracks with tighter Dutch controls on semiconductor gear. The Netherlands expanded licensing rules for more advanced chipmaking equipment on September 7, 2024, and tightened them again from April 1, 2025. (government.nl, government.nl) YMTC says its NAND uses a design called Xtacking, which builds the memory cells and the control circuits on separate wafers before joining them, a method the company says improves input and output speed. The company’s current product pages list fifth-generation triple-level-cell and quad-level-cell NAND parts alongside older fourth-generation products. (ymtc.com, ymtc.com) Beijing’s wider funding machine has been building for years. Tom’s Hardware reported in March 2024 that the third phase of China’s National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, known as the Big Fund, was designed to raise about $27 billion for domestic semiconductor projects. (tomshardware.com) YMTC and AMEC did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the new factories. If the company completes all three additions, the question will shift from whether China can build more NAND lines under export controls to how much of the tool chain it can replace at home. (reuters.com)
