Unigroup Guoxin, a unit of Tsinghua Unigroup, has terminated plans to take over Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC), according to Tsinghua Unigroup. The decision will have no impact on the operation and development of YMTC, Tsinghua Unigroup claimed.

Tsinghua Unigroup still regards YMTC as the main body of China's national memory base project, the controlling shareholder of YMTC indicated. Tsinghua Unigroup earlier in 2017 invested a total of CNY19.7 billion (US$2.92 billion) in YMTC through a holding company, and holds a 51.04% stake in YMTC.

Tsinghua Unigroup and other shareholders of YMTC including China's National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, Hubei IC Industry Investment Fund and Hubei Science & Technology Investment Group have already injected a total of CNY38.6 billion into YMTC, Tsinghua Unigroup noted. The construction of YMTC has been in progress since the groundbreaking on December 30, 2016, Tsinghua Unigroup said.

Another huge investment will be required for the development of YMTC as part of the national memory base project, but the project is still at its initial stage and will not generate revenues in the short term, Tsinghua Unigroup indicated. Therefore, Unigroup Guoxin decided to terminate its plan to acquire associate company YMTC due to premature conditions, Tsinghua Unigroup said.

YMTC is constructing a memory fab in Wuhan (Hebei province, China), which will be dedicated to producing 3D NAND flash memory with volume production slated for 2018.

Tsinghua Unigroup reiterated its commitment to the development of YMTC and China's national memory base project.

According to industry observers, Tsinghua Unigroup is looking to help YMTC raise funds from the capital market by having YMTC be acquired by Shenzhen-listed subsidiary Unigroup Guoxin. However, the plan has been put on hold raising speculation about the uncertainty in the development of China's homegrown memory sector.

Currently, key 3D NAND flash technologies are held by Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Micron Technology/ Intel and Toshiba, which have gone through bottlenecks before moving their 3D NAND technologies to volume production. It will take a certain period of time for YMTC to have its 3D NAND products ready for volume production, the observers believe.