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Source: China Securities

In the past two days, there have been many major events in the chip industry!

According to multiple media reports, Yangtze Memory Technologies, a Chinese 3D NAND leader, has filed a lawsuit against Micron Technology in the Northern District of California, accusing the US company of infringing 11 of its patents covering various aspects of 3D NAND operation. Yangtze Memory Technologies is asking the court to order Micron to stop selling its memory in the US and to pay it royalties.

This is the second time that Yangtze Memory Technologies has taken action against Micron after June this year. In November 2023, Yangtze Memory Technologies sued Micron for patent infringement in the United States, involving 8 patents; in June 2024, Yangtze Memory Technologies sued a consulting company funded by Micron in the United States, accusing it of spreading false information.

Today, there is also news that Nvidia is developing a new flagship AI chip for the Chinese market that complies with current U.S. export controls. On the other hand, Samsung Electro-Mechanics announced that it will supply AMD with high-performance FCBGA substrates for the hyperscale data center sector.

Come see the report!

Yangtze Memory Technologies Corporation

According to media reports, Yangtze Memory Technologies, a Chinese 3D NAND leader, has filed a lawsuit against Micron in the Northern District of California (via Blocks&Files), accusing the US company of infringing 11 of its patents covering various aspects of 3D NAND operation. Yangtze Memory Technologies is asking the court to order Micron to stop selling its memory in the US and to pay it royalties.

Yangtze Memory stated that Micron's 96-layer (B27A), 128-layer (B37R), 176-layer (B47R) and 232-layer (B58R) 3D NAND memory and some of Micron's DDR5SDRAM products (Y2BM series) infringed 11 patents or patent applications filed in the U.S. According to the list of patent applications collected by @lithos_graphein, they cover general aspects of 3D NAND and DRAM functions.

The U.S. Department of Commerce blacklisted Yangtze Memory at the end of 2022, which greatly increased the difficulty for the company to obtain advanced wafer fab equipment from U.S. companies to manufacture its market-leading 3D NAND devices. Last year, the U.S. Department of Commerce banned the sale of wafer fab tools and technologies that can be used to manufacture 3D NAND with more than 128 active layers, making it more difficult for Yangtze Memory to develop.

Interestingly, US-based Patriot Memory is preparing a high-end PCIe Gen5x4 SSD with a read speed of up to 14GB/s. The company's technology is based on a controller from a Chinese company, Maxiotek, and 3D NAND memory from Yangtze Memory.

Chip events continue

Recently, there have been many major events in the chip industry.

On July 22, Samsung Electro-Mechanics announced that it would supply AMD with high-performance FCBGA (Flip Chip-Ball Grid Array) substrates for the hyperscale data center field.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics announced in a press release that it has invested 1.9 trillion won (about 9.95 billion yuan) in the field of FCBGA substrates. Samsung Electro-Mechanics and AMD have jointly developed packaging technology that integrates multiple semiconductor chips onto a single substrate. This technology is critical for CPU/GPU applications and can achieve the high-density interconnection required for today's hyperscale data centers. Compared with general computer substrates, data center substrates are 10 times larger and have 3 times more layers, which places higher requirements on chip power supply and reliability.

According to IT Times, Kim Won-taek, vice president and head of strategic marketing at Samsung Electro-Mechanics, said: "We have become a strategic partner of AMD, a global leader in HPC (high-performance computing) and AI semiconductor solutions. We will continue to invest in advanced substrate solutions to meet the changing needs of data centers and computing-intensive applications, providing core value to customers such as AMD."

“AMD is at the forefront of innovation to meet customer demands for performance and efficiency,” said Scott Aylor, vice president of AMD Worldwide Operations Manufacturing Strategy. “Our leadership in silicon technology enables us to deliver exceptional performance, efficiency and flexibility across our portfolio of CPUs and data center GPUs. Our continued investment with partners like Samsung Electronics will ensure we have the advanced substrate technology and capabilities needed to deliver tomorrow’s HPC and AI products.”

The combination of Samsung and AMD is a boon for users with computing power needs around the world, but it may not be good news for Nvidia, the largest GPU manufacturer.

Recently, Nvidia has also made some moves. According to Reuters on the 22nd, Nvidia is developing a new flagship artificial intelligence chip for the Chinese market that complies with current U.S. export controls. Nvidia released the "Blac kwel" chip series in March this year and will go into mass production later this year. In this series, the B200 is 30 times faster than its predecessor in certain tasks (such as providing answers to chatbots). Sources said that Nvidia will work with its Chinese distributor partners to launch and distribute the chip, tentatively named "B20."

Editor: Chen Lixiang

Proofreading: Liu Rongzhi