As a subsidiary of China's top university Tsinghua University, Unigroup specializes in producing flash memory NAND, the other dominant type of
memory chip. Backed by local government, Unigroup acquired a Chinese leading semiconductor maker XMC in 2016 and formed NAND-maker Yangtze Memory Technologies.
Shares of
memory chip manufacturer Micron Technology (NASDAQ:(https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MU?p=MU) MU ) have surged in recent months, up about 30% since bottoming out in late June.
The move by the world's largest
memory chip maker is in contrast to decisions made by the second-largest and third largest semiconductor makers, SK hynix and Micron Technology, which have already announced plans to cut their output to cope with lower prices and weak demand.
The move is likely a challenge to big rivals TSMC and Qualcomm in mobile processing chips, while the
memory chip market contracts from a longtime boom.
The Semiconductor Business saw a drop in
memory chip prices as inventory adjustments continued at datacenter companies, while demand for high-density memory for mobile phones increased thanks to new flagship smartphones.
The cards are said to feature a similar memory design where the Max-Q that could use 12 Gbps
memory chip, while its standard variant might run on 14 Gbps dye.
The price of DRAM products -- used in mobile devices, servers, and PCs -- is expected to see a sharp drop of five percent in the fourth quarter from the previous quarter on slowing demand, said TrendForce, a market research firm that tracks
memory chip pricing.
While Samsung and SK hynix take up nearly 70 percent of the global
memory chip market, the Korean chipmakers account for less than 3 percent of the non-memory market, according to ministry data.
Woo said China OEMs and Internet/eCommerce companies need
memory chips to run their local and global businesses, and domestic branded
memory chip production has not been successful despite years of effort.
Summary: Samsung Electronics is reportedly planning to build a new
memory chip production line in China in late March.
For the current quarter, Samsung said its
memory chip division will continue to see strong demand from data centers around the world while its mobile business will see an earnings improvement as the company is due to launch the Galaxy S9 smartphone in spring.
memory chip - a RAM microchip that can be plugged into a computer to provide additional memory