Market Share
~5-7% global NAND
Key Product
Xtacking 3D NAND flash (232-layer)
Bottleneck Status
Entity Listed; limited to domestically sourced or legacy equipment
Full briefing▼ Expand
Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. (YMTC) was founded in 2016 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, with substantial funding from the Chinese government's National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund (the 'Big Fund'). It was established with the explicit goal of building a domestic NAND flash industry to reduce China's dependence on Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, and other foreign memory suppliers. YMTC developed its own proprietary 3D NAND architecture called Xtacking, which separates the array and peripheral circuits onto different wafers before bonding them together — a design intended to improve performance and density without requiring the most advanced single lithography nodes. By 2022, YMTC had demonstrated a 128-layer Xtacking NAND and was sampling a 232-layer product, positioning itself as a credible fourth player in the global NAND market. In December 2022, Apple was reported to be nearing qualification of YMTC NAND chips for use in iPhones sold in China — a potentially transformative commercial relationship. This development, combined with U.S. government intelligence about YMTC supplying Huawei with NAND in apparent violation of existing restrictions, accelerated the Entity List decision. The December 15, 2022 listing cut YMTC off from the U.S.-origin advanced equipment it needed to scale its 232-layer process to high-volume production and develop next-generation 300-layer NAND. Post-listing, YMTC has continued to operate its existing fabs using equipment installed before the restrictions took effect, and is working with domestic Chinese equipment suppliers to try to fill gaps. However, the most precise lithography, etch, and deposition tools it needs for leading-edge scaling are not yet available domestically at the required specifications. YMTC supplies NAND primarily to Chinese Android smartphone makers and domestic storage integrators; it no longer has a path to international tier-1 customers like Apple.
Connected companies
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Critical path — raw silicon to deployment
The tightest single-source dependencies, in order.
EQUIPMENT
ASML
EUV & DUV lithography systems
MATERIALS
Shin-Etsu Chemical
300mm silicon wafers and photoresist
MATERIALS
SUMCO
300mm and 200mm silicon wafers
MEMORY (HBM)
YMTC
Xtacking 3D NAND flash (232-layer)
CLOUD PROVIDERS
Alibaba Cloud
Alibaba Cloud AI, Hanguang 800 NPU, Qwen LLM
CLOUD PROVIDERS
Huawei Cloud
Huawei Cloud EI (AI), Ascend 910-based ModelArts platform
Export controls touching YMTC
China Gallium & Germanium Export Controls (Aug 2023)
China's Ministry of Commerce and Customs implemented export licensing requirements for gallium and germanium products, effective August 1, 2023. The controls cover 8 gallium-related items (including gallium metal, gallium nitride, and gallium arsenide) and 6 germanium-related items (including germanium metal, germanium dioxide, and germanium epitaxial growth wafers). Exporters must apply to the Ministry of Commerce for licenses, which are reviewed for national security and non-proliferation considerations. China produces approximately 80% of the world's gallium and 60% of its germanium, making these controls a direct leverage point over semiconductor and compound-semiconductor supply chains globally.
▲ 13 companies affected
Netherlands EUV & DUV Lithography Export Control (Sep 2023)
The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs required ASML to obtain export licenses for its deep-ultraviolet (DUV) lithography systems and extended the existing ban on EUV systems. ASML is the sole manufacturer of EUV machines globally; the controls prevent China from acquiring the equipment needed to produce chips at leading-edge nodes. The policy was developed in alignment with U.S. and Japanese export control frameworks.
▲ 12 companies affected
U.S.–Netherlands–Japan Trilateral Chip Equipment Alignment (Jan 2023)
Following extensive diplomatic negotiations, the United States, the Netherlands, and Japan reached an informal multilateral agreement — announced on or around January 27, 2023 — to align their semiconductor equipment export control frameworks. The Netherlands subsequently imposed DUV licensing requirements on ASML (effective September 2023), and Japan expanded its controls to 23 categories of advanced fab equipment (effective July 2023). The trilateral alignment effectively closed the most significant loopholes in restricting China's access to the equipment needed for leading-edge chip production, since restrictions by any single ally could previously be circumvented through the others.
▲ 12 companies affected
QWho supplies YMTC?
YMTC relies on 9 upstream suppliers across the AI chip supply chain.
ASML (Sole maker of EUV lithography machines), Shin-Etsu Chemical (World's largest silicon wafer supplier), SUMCO (#2 global silicon wafer supplier; duopoly with Shin-Etsu controls ~55% of world supply), SCREEN Holdings (Leading wafer cleaning and surface treatment equipment maker (~20% global market share)), Kokusai Electric (Critical supplier of batch ALD and CVD furnace systems essential for NAND and DRAM production), and 4 more.
QWhat does YMTC make?
China's largest 3D NAND maker; Entity Listed Dec 2022, primarily serves domestic market
Key products Xtacking 3D NAND flash (232-layer)