According to industry sources,Storage giants Kioxia and SanDisk are evaluating the possibility of building a new NAND flash memory manufacturing plant in the United States. This move is seen as responding to the strategic requirements of the US and Japanese governments to strengthen the localization of semiconductor supply chains.Currently, the NAND wafer fabs of the Kioxia-SanDisk alliance are all located in Japan (Yokaichi and Kitakami), and nearly 90% of the world's NAND production capacity is concentrated in East Asia.
It is worth noting thatNone of the U.S. plant construction plans previously announced by Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron, the three major memory manufacturers, involve the NAND business, making this potential move even more strategic.
However, building a factory in the United States faces significant risks, and TSMC's Arizona project is a warning: the Phoenix factory announced in May 2020 will not officially start construction until April 2021, and the actual mass production time is significantly delayed from the original plan, highlighting the systemic challenges faced by domestic semiconductor manufacturing in the United States such as engineering management and talent supply.
Industry analysis points out thatEven if Kioxia and SanDisk finally advance their plans to build a factory in the United States, it will take at least 3-5 years from site selection decision to equipment debugging.This means that in the next two to three years, the global NAND flash memory supply pattern will maintain its current situation, and it is difficult for new factories to have a substantial impact on the market in the short term.
