3D NAND fab seen as milestone for China

XMC is the only China foundry producing memory. It will eventually churn out 200,000 wafers per month.

China foundry XMC is poised to break ground on a new wafer fab for the production of 3D NAND flash memory, according to TrendForce, a global market research firm.

Sean Yang, research director at TrendForce's DRAMeXchange subsidiary, said the construction of the XMC facility signals an important milestone for the company and the domestic semiconductor industry.

"While XMC is showing its strong ambition to form its NAND flash business, the China memory industry is signaling that it is entering the next phase of development after two years of groundwork," Yang said through a statement.

The fab, which is expected to begin volume production in 2018, will have a capacity of 200,000 wafers per month, although this could take years to achieve, TrendForce said. XMC currently turns out mostly NOR flash memory and its capacity is about 20,000 wafers per month.

Based in Wuhan in Hubei province, XMC is the only China foundry engaged in memory production. But it is widely believed that China views ramping up manufacture of memory chips as a path to developing a more robust semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem.

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