Chinese start-up Numemory claims memory chip breakthrough amid US tech sanctions
Chinese semiconductor start-up Numemory has launched what it touts as the largest-capacity memory chip in its category designed and produced on the mainland, claiming that it is a breakthrough that bolsters the country’s technology self-sufficiency efforts amid stifling US government sanctions.
Numemory, formally known as Xincun Technology (Wuhan) Co, recently introduced to the domestic market its 64-gigabyte NM101, a type of storage-class memory (SCM) chip that is “expected to break the long-term monopoly of international giants in this field”, according to a report on Wednesday by the government-run Hubei Daily newspaper, without providing details.
Similar products in the market only offer megabyte-range capacity, according to the report, which pointed out the chip’s potential to “significantly reduce the country’s reliance on foreign memory technologies”.
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SCM is a memory and storage technology that combines features found in both dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and traditional NAND flash storage found in smartphones and other consumer electronics devices. Sometimes known as Persistent Memory, SCM offers fast non-volatile memory to processors used in servers and storage systems in data centres.
Chinese start-up Numemory’s new NM101 memory chip. Photo: Handout alt=Chinese start-up Numemory’s new NM101 memory chip. Photo: Handout>
According to the newspaper report, hard drives equipped with an SCM chip take only a second to store a 10GB high-definition film.
Numemory – founded in July 2022 in Wuhan, capital of central Hubei province – said solid-state drives built with SCM technology can offer data centres and cloud computing services providers a storage solution with large capacity, high density, high bandwidth and low latency.
The high-profile domestic release of the NM101 shows how mainland memory chip companies are continuing to push advances in technology, despite US government sanctions that have stifled China’s semiconductor industry development.
According to a blog post it published on Tuesday, Numemory said the NM101 is the result of years of “independent and autonomous research and development”.
3D XPoint, developed jointly by Intel and Micron Technology, was a notable SCM technology, but it was discontinued in 2022.
Story continues
Chinese flash memory giant Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC) recently made a leap in technology in terms of chip design architecture, called Xtacking4.0, on the back of its ties with domestic suppliers of chip-manufacturing tools, according to a teardown report of Canadian research firm TechInsights.
YMTC’s 512GB triple-level cell memory chip that adopted the new architecture was found inside a solid-state drive of ZhiTai TiPlus, a consumer brand of the Chinese firm, according to the TechInsights report.
The chip maker has said it was seeing a surge in demand for its flash memory products, particularly from local enterprises working on government and military-related projects. Last year, YMTC was credited by TechInsights for manufacturing the “world’s most advanced” 3D NAND memory chip.
Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology last month highlighted two domestically made chip-making lithography machines that it said had achieved significant advances. Analysts, however, have indicated that those machines are still not capable of making advanced chips.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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