NAND: Beijing complements storage chip map, technology autonomy and national capital continue to interweave

A new line of expansion is emerging in China’s storage chip industry. Industry news on September 18 showed that Longxin Storage, known for its DRAM business, is pushing forward the NAND flashing-related layout. If the project enters real-mass production, China’s domestic storage industry will see a more obvious cross-class integration, which will further change the global storage chip competition pattern.

NAND and DRAM are identical storage chips, but serve different data storage needs. DRAM mainly carries high-speed temporary storage, while NAND is widely used in solid-state hard drives, phones, data centers and various terminal devices. For a DRAM manufacturer, entering NAND is not simply adding a product line, but means new process routes, equipment systems, talent structure and customer verification cycles.

In the past few years, the Chinese government has put the semi-conductor autonomous supply capacity as the focus of industrial policy. After the United States has continued to tighten the export control of advanced chips and manufacturing equipment, Beijing has also promoted local replacement through industrial funds, local investment and policy support. The development of Longxin storage is therefore both a business expansion of the enterprise, but also in the national industrial strategy, local capital and global technology restrictions intersecting environment.

A key problem that this model brings is that policy resources can accelerate construction, but can not replace good rates, costs and long-term customer verification. Storage chips have strong cycle properties, prices will fluctuate sharply with global supply demand. Samsung, SK Healy, Microsystems and other manufacturers have long-term scale and technological accumulation, new entrants even receive capital support, must undergo market testing in unit cost, process stability and capacity utilization.

Meanwhile, China’s indigenous smartphones, servers, electric vehicles and AI infrastructure provide huge storage needs. If domestic NANDs are able to obtain stable orders, domestic markets may become an important support for its expanding capacity and iterative processes.

For external markets, what really needs to be observed is not the "notification into NAND" itself, but what technology routes the project uses, how equipment sources solve, when verified production capacity is formed, and which products eventually enter the customer supply chain.

The expansion of Jiangxi storage thus reflects a long-term feature of China's semiconductor policy: Beijing has chosen to push supply chain autonomy with stronger national resources following deepening external technological restrictions.