The Patent Dilemma Before the Rise of China's Storage Industry

memory, especiallyDRAM, is largely considered a pure commodity business. The conventional wisdom is that as long as enough investment in the fieldFundingThe Chinese memory company can easily enter the memory chip arena and immediately start working with the industry's three giants, South Korea Samsung Electronics.(Samsung Electronics), Hylix(SK Hynix)and Micron Technology(Micron Technology)A trick.

There is no doubt that Chinese enterprises will become semiconductor memory in the near future.MarketA strong force. The Chinese government has been committed to developing the domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry, and for more than a decade, the investment in this industry has exceeded1,600Billion dollars, memory start-ups account for the majority of the share. Tsinghua Uniguang Group even announced plansInvestmentTwo large fabs, the amount of investment exceeds500There may be more plans or drafts under construction that have not yet been announced. It can be seen that Chinese semiconductor companies are financially strong.

However, it is worth noting that Chinese memory upstarts like Ziguang Group are in the same position as the memory three giants.MarketYou'll probably have to fight in court before you get to a real fight.PatentThe litigation battle.

The patent litigation battle may come sooner than expected. Micron Technology in2017Year12Month4In accordance with the "Protection of Business Secrets Act" and the "Anti-Extortion and Bribery Organization Act", a civil lawsuit was filed in the Federal Court of Northern California, suing Taiwan Lianhua Electronics and Fujian Jinhua for theft of its trade secrets. A Micron spokesperson said: "Micron actively protects its global intellectual property rights and will use all available legal weapons to resolve all misappropriation."

Although Micron's lawsuit is reminiscent of commercial espionage, it is undeniable that when Fujian Jinhua and other Chinese companies start selling memory chips, Samsung and other giants will have the opportunity to analyze these products and find enough to prove their patents. Evidence of infringement will follow, and some major lawsuits will follow.

Earlier reports said that the Yangtze River storage technology is rapidly developing3D NANDFlash memory, but the most advanced memory technology is led and developed by Samsung. Experts in related fields believe that it will be impossible for Chinese companies to develop and produce products without avoiding Samsung patents.3D NAND.

In fact, Samsung, Hynix and Micron all turn a blind eye to each other in terms of patent infringement, because they all have a huge patent library, so the patent battle between them is meaningless. However, if a new company enters the market, they will not give such preferential treatment.

Although China's storage products have not yet entered the market, this is not to say that Chinese memory companies have not received the attention of memory giants. In fact,2017Samsung's capital expenditure was quite positive in2016of the year113$billion increase260Billions of dollars, doubled. This may be hard evidence of Samsung's attempt to attack Chinese companies. Its goal is to further consolidate Samsung's position in the field of new technologies, so that Chinese companies cannot enter the patent minefield at will.

China's wafer foundries have a similar experience, with China's largestWafer foundryEnterprise-SMIC(SMIC), established in2000years, now in pure waferfoundryranked fourth in,2016Annual market share of approximately5%around, while the market leader TSMC(TSMC), its market share is59%, much higher than SMIC. In fact, when SMIC and Chinese foundry manufacturer Hongli Semiconductor were in their infancy, they quickly occupied the global pure wafer foundry contract.13%market share. However, to this day, the cumulative market share of Chinese foundry companies is less8%. TSMC's patent infringement lawsuit has dealt a great blow to SMIC. It is precisely because of this patent lawsuit that TSMC has become a minority shareholder of SMIC. It is difficult for Chinese memory companies to compare with China.Wafer foundryBusinesses are doing better.

Chinese memory companies will gain a foothold in the market in the future, but the process may be similar to that of a wafer foundry, facing a series of patent infringement lawsuits. Chinese semiconductor companies want to get rid of the patent dilemma they are facing. On the one hand, they need to increase R & D expenditures and actively carry out patent layout in new R & D fields. On the other hand, at the beginning of new project research and development, they need to conduct relevant patent search analysis. Seriously evaluate the existing patent risks, actively negotiate with relevant companies, obtain patent authorization, and reduce the patent risks faced by products after entering the market.