admin Apple Inc, the US tech giant, has decided to stall their plans to use memory chips from Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (YMTC), a Chinese manufacturing company, in its products. The Nikkei reported on Monday that the decision comes after Washington imposed tighter export controls against Chinese technology companies.
The original plan of Apple involved them using the state-funded NAND flash memory chips manufactured by YMTC as early as this year. Nikkei further stated that the people were already familiar with the matter. The chips were initially planned to be used only for iPhones sold in the Chinese market. Down the line it was planning on purchasing up to 40% of the chips that would be needed for all iPhones from YMTC, the newspaper said.
The United States last week added a number of Chinese companies to a list of companies that the U.S. officials have been unable to inspect. This includes the top memory chipmaker of China YMTC along with 30 other Chinese entities that have been included to the list. This inclusion of several Chinese companies ended up ratcheting up the tensions with Beijing, starting a 60 day clock that could trigger penalties much tougher than these.
Currently YMTC is also being investigated by the US Commerce Department over whether it has violated the export controls set by Washington. Washington suspects that it has done so by selling chips to blacklisted Chinese telecommunications company Huawei Technologies Co Ltd.
The Biden administration, with these sweeping set of export controls on China is a bid, is hoping to slow down the technological and military advances of Beijing by cutting the supplies of the country off from certain semiconductor chips made anywhere in the world with US equipment.
Even though YMTC’s Xstacking 3.0 six-plane design offers triple-level cell storage with I/O speeds of 2400 MT/s, Apple is not going to source any NAND Flash memory since the political relationship between the United States and China is becoming more regulated. However, considering the enormous demand for NAND Flash and the new customers, this may not be a deal breaker for firms. As for Apple, the business has signed contracts with Kioxia, SK Hynix, and Samsung, in addition to other companies, providing a consistent storage supply for the company’s potential strategies.
Apple did not immediately respond to the request for comment, while YMTC declined to comment.
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