China's YMTC is reportedly aiming to more than double its wafer production, which could eventually help put cheap gaming SSDs back on the menu
One of China's largest chip manufacturers has apparently made plans to build two additional new foundries to the one already under construction. Once all are operational, it's claimed that the firm's wafer output will more than double, which could potentially make it one of the world's largest makers of NAND flash memory chips.
The firm in question is Yangtze Memory Technologies, better known simply as YMTC, and its flash memory is heavily used by the likes of Acer, Adata, Lexar, and Team Group for their SSDs and other storage devices. The best budget gaming SSD around, the Biwin Black Opal NV7400, is a drive that also uses YMTC chips, though the production is also joined by offerings from Micron.
However, YMTC itself hasn't publicly announced these fab production plans, and instead the claims come from Reuters, which cites sources who "were not authorised to speak to media and declined to be identified", though this is normal for such new stories.
Given the current flash and DRAM market, where the AI industry is ordering so many chips that there's a global shortage of them (leading to sky-high prices), you might think that YMTC has amended its plans to include an additional two foundries to capitalise on the billions of dollars of potential AI orders.
However, Reuters suggests that the move is more to do with China distancing itself from reliance on US chip manufacturers, especially in light of the introduction of export restrictions on chip-making equipment.
While it's potentially good news for PC gamers hoping to see lower SSD prices, YMTC isn't going to be ready to flood the market with cheaper chips just yet. Its foundry that's currently still in construction isn't expected to start running until later this year, and even then, it won't reach its full potential until next year.
The two extra plants will take many more years to be in the same position, though Reuters' sources claim that all the new facilities will be able to churn out 100,000 wafers apiece, and put together, YMTC's output could potentially more than double. That's unlikely to be enough to knock Samsung off the top slot in the list of global flash memory production, but it could well make SK hynix and Micron look twice.
YMTC is apparently also considering dedicating some of the increased wafer production towards the manufacturing of LPDDR, as used in phones, tablets, and some laptops, but even if it does, the DRAM market is utterly dominated by Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron.
In other words, don't expect to see DDR5 memory kits come down in price just because YMTC is able to sell some DRAM chips cheaper than the competition.