Russian Kraftway agreed to launch production of microcontrollers with a Chinese partner

2022: Launch of Russian-Chinese microcontroller production

At the end of June 2022, it became known about the conclusion of a contract between Kraftway and the Chinese company YMTC. The agreement concerns the production of memory controllers at the YMTC facilities - microchips that are responsible for writing, deleting and storing information on memory chips in solid-state drives.

Kraftway controllers will have memory from YMTC, Micron and Toshiba. The read speed of the controllers will be 830 Mbps, write speed - 680 Mbps. Due to the optimization of firmware, the indicators will be 5-10% higher.

Russian Kraftway agreed to launch production of microcontrollers with Chinese partners

The first YMTC plant is capable of processing up to 100 thousand 300-mm plates with flash memory chips per month. By the end of 2022, the company intends to open a second enterprise that will be able to process up to 200 thousand plates every month. For several years, Kraftway plans to reach production of 1 million solid-state drives per year.

According to Vedomosti, citing Renat Yusupov, senior vice president of the Craft Corporation PLC, the company plans to launch mass production of memory controllers in 2023. It is assumed that localized components should be in demand for public procurement, the newspaper notes.^[1]

Renat Yusupov did not specify what investments Kraftway is ready for, but noted: in order to recoup the production of the component base, controllers must be sold in "hundreds of thousands of pieces."

The cost of the controller is the cost of a plate cut into the number of crystals, - said Yusupov. - A plate for a thousand crystals costs $15,000-20,000. In order to recoup this, investment in development must amount to billions.

According to him, the Russian market for final products using controllers is now estimated at six to seven million units, and Kraftway hopes for 10-15% of the market after the launch of production.

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