For a long time, China's semiconductor industry lags behind, there is no ability to produce chip particles, a serious dependence on foreign chip particles.
In China's import trade, China spent 1.2 trillion renminbi on imported chips in January-October 2016 alone, spending twice as much on crude oil imports.
Fortunately, China is now increasing investment in the chip area, the progress is still good.People hope that domestic memory can break the price of DRAM monopoly, so as to buy cheaper memory, but the fact is that true?
Domestic memory progress at a glance: low yield, immature technology
DRAM research and development is an extremely burn-in technology. In 2016, Ziguang Group, with a total investment of 100 billion yuan, started construction of memory chips and memory manufacturing plants in Wuhan, Nanjing and Chengdu successively. The goal is to build domestic wafer and DRAM chips and 3D NAND.
Which, DRAM technology research and development of the most difficult progress is the slowest.
In late 2017, E-commerce platform out of a small amount of violet DDR3 memory, the DRAM technology from the acquisition of Infineon Technologies Group in the Storage Division , And the production capacity has been insufficient, the problem of low yield is not resolved, so it is not formally sold.
On February 28, 2018, Ziguang Group announced that its DDR4 memory will be gradually introduced into the market during the year, frankly admitting that its sales volume will not be too high and will have a small impact on its annual financial statements.
At present we can buy violet DDR4 memory that has not been sold publicly, this memory has not adopted violet particle, of course, DRAM production capacity is insufficient either.
The use of purple particles of DDR3 memory performance can be tested by netizens, violet DDR3 memory can be overclocked to the default voltage of 2000MHz, but this is nothing strange, after all, the industry standard DDR3 memory.
In terms of price, Violet Memory seems less conscientious.DDR4 4GB memory up to 420 yuan, and people hope that the domestic memory to break the monopoly price of foreign far cry from the wishes of other brands of memory compared with no advantage.
Of course, the true price of purple memory have to wait for the official listing we can just to comment.
Domestic memory and memory price has nothing to do
Memory price ferocious, some people look forward to domestic-made memory can break the monopoly of foreign technology, memory prices can come down, but here I want to pour a pot of cold water, because the domestic memory for the time being can not affect the DRAM price trend for three reasons:
1, Ziguang Group, smaller memory capacity, the market size is small, can not compete with Samsung, Micron, Hynix and other DRAM manufacturers.
2, 2018, the demand for memory is still very large, coupled with raw materials is now in a substantial increase in supply stage, which led to the high cost of memory purple, the actual product prices will not be realized in a short period of decline.
3, both the product brand or technology, the advantage of domestic purple memory is not large, difficult to profit in the short term. Can not affect the financial, so there is no ability to price war.
See here you may ask, that country is so energetic R & D memory what is the use?
For us personally, the memory of domestic and imported no difference, but rose to the national level, the importance of domestic memory as much as domestic CPU and domestic system.
As early as 2015, China's supercomputer industry encountered the U.S. Department of Commerce banning Intel Xeon processors.
A notice issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce on February 18, 2015 said that the Tianhe No. 2 system using two Intel microprocessor chips and the previous Tianhe No. 1 A system "is believed to be used in nuclear explosions simulation" .
Therefore, we can see that if the technology is controlled by others, the future will inevitably face more banning events.
In addition, the memory technology in the hands of other countries also means the hands of the Achilles heel in the national information security, the risk is enormous.Electronic products in modern society ubiquitous, memory is an essential part of electronic products.If there is' Backdoor 'program, will lead to the disclosure of many sensitive national information.
Therefore, China vigorously develop DRAM, 3D NAND is a national strategy, the memory price reduction for the Chinese semiconductor industry no benefit, or even risk, which we will mention below.
Watch out for risk: prepare for DDR5
A few years ago a lot of DRAM manufacturers have closed down, leaving only Samsung, Hynix, Micron three, the reason is that DRAM is not profitable.
Market demand is too strong in 2017, DRAM manufacturers can not keep up production capacity has led to demand, the price soared 'super good' period.
However, the world's first and second largest dram maker Samsung Electronics and sk hynix are scrambling to expand DRAM production.Reported that if the two giants continue to increase production, then the global DRAM supply and demand will be reversed, DRAM prices will Plummeted
Once the memory price falls, the Chinese semiconductor industry is likely to lose or even be crushed.
This round of DRAM plant is not groundless, a survey by Taiwanese enterprises show that 'Samsung is trying to increase dram production in order to improve market barriers to entry, to prevent DRAM prices from rising further.'
In the third quarter of 2017, Samsung Electronics also said: 'It will convert the Hualian flash memory production facility into a DRAM production facility and use the second floor of the Pyeongtaer factory to produce DRAM.'
Bank of America Merrill Lynch, one of the world's largest financial institutions, forecasts Samsung's DRAM capacity will increase by 20.3% over the next two years.
sk hynix is no exception.In July 2017, sk hynix increased the investment scale by nearly 40%, thereby doubling the production capacity of the DRAM plant in Wuxi, China.However, the report said that in dram production Micron three companies did not follow up.
It seems the industry, Samsung and Hynix's behavior is to suppress the rise of China's semiconductor industry means, The domestic road memory, at great risk.
summary:
Into 2018, the memory industry will officially announce DDR5 memory specifications, the next generation of DDR memory bandwidth and density are now twice the technical difficulty will reach an unprecedented height, DRAM is facing a new round of reshuffle.
This is the best time for Chinese enterprises to challenge and overtake their cars. In the future, it is hoped that China's semiconductor companies will make significant achievements in DDR5 memory, breaking the industry monopoly and highlighting the big power.
