Chinese Xi’an UniIC Semiconductors Starts to Sell DDR4 Chips and Modules
by Anton Shilov on February 24, 2018 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Memory
- DDR4
- DRAM
- Tsinghua
- Xi'an UniIC
- Unisemiconductor
- Unigroup
Xi’an UniIC Semiconductors, a memory producer based in China, has started to sell DDR4 DRAM chips and modules that were developed and made in-house. This is the first time when a China-based company develops its own DDR4 memory chips. In the meantime, it is completely unclear which process technology Xi’an UniIC uses to manufacture the chips and whether it was developed in-house.
Xi’an UniIC’s DDR4 lineup includes 4 GB and 8 GB SO-DIMMs, 4 GB and 8 GB UDIMMs as well as a 4 GB UDIMM with ECC, all rated for data transfer rate of 2133 MT/s with CL15 15-15 timings at 1.2 V (according to Xi’an UniIC’s DDR4 product decoder). All the DIMMs are based on Xi’an UniIC’s own DDR4 memory chips featuring 4 Gb capacity. The modules and the chips are not meant to offer breakthrough performance levels and are probably aimed at various inexpensive PCs, most of which will be sold in China.
| Xi’an UniIC’s DDR4 Lineup | |||||||
| Type | Capacity | Speed | Timings | Voltage | |||
| SCQ04GU03AF1C-21P | UDIMM | 4 GB | 2133 MT/s | CL15 15-15 | 1.2V | ||
| SCQ04GE03AF1C-21P | ECC UDIMM | 4 GB | |||||
| SCQ08GU13AF1C-21P | UDIMM | 8 GB | |||||
| SCQ04GS03AF1C-21P | SO-DIMM | 4 GB | |||||
| SCQ08GS13AF1C-21P | SO-DIMM | 8 GB | |||||
Xi’an UniIC’s DDR4 products can hardly impress avid readers who follow DRAM innovations closely (and know that leading makers already produce DDR4-3600 ICs), but the fact that a Chinese company has developed and produced such chips is important itself. Meanwhile, Xi’an UniIC actually has history of DRAM production, so the new memory was hardly developed entirely from scratch.
Xi’an UniIC was founded in 2003 as Infineon Xi’an Memory Division and was then renamed to Qimonda Xi’an in 2006 after Infineon spun off its DRAM business. From 2003 to 2009 the company produced DDR, DDR2, DDR3 and other memory types for the parent company (Xi’an UniIC still offers them). After Qimonda went bankrupt in 2009, Inspur Group acquired remaining assets of its Xi’an subsidiary and started to produce its own DRAM in late 2010 (using IP and process technologies originally developed by Qimonda). In 2013, the company constructed the Xi’an Memory Engineering Technology Research Center with the help from Xi’an Science & Technology Agency. This R&D center apparently worked on DDR4 memory ICs as well as a new process technology to make them. Sometime in 2015 the company was acquired by Unigroup Guoxin (which is a part of Tsinghua Holdings) and was renamed to Xi’an UniIC Semiconductor. With financial and political backing of the multi-billion dollar government-controlled conglomerate, Xi’an UniIC finished development of its 4 Gb DDR4 chips and a fabrication process to produce them.
Xi’an UniIC reportedly started sales of its DDR4 memory modules recently. PC Watch notes that the company’s 8 GB UDIMM was added to the CPU-Z database in September, 2016, so they could be available to customers in China for a while now. What remains unclear is whether the DDR4 ICs from Xi’an UniIC use any IP originally owned by Infineon/Qimonda and whether the manufacturer intends to sell its chips and modules outside of China.
Related Reading
- Samsung Starts Production of 8 Gb DDR4-3600 ICs Using 2nd Gen 10nm-Class Tech
- Samsung Updates on GDDR6 Portfolio: 8 Gb and 16 Gb at Multiple Speeds
- Samsung Starts Mass Production of 16Gb GDDR6 Memory ICs with 18 Gbps I/O Speed
- SK Hynix’s Product Catalog Lists 16 Gb DDR4 Chips, Opens Doors to 256 GB DIMMs
- G.Skill Unveils 16GB DDR4-4700 Trident Z RGB DRAM Kit: Samung B-die & RGB LED
- ADATA Unveils New XPG RGB DDR4 Kits: Spectrix D60 4600MHz & Spectrix DS40 SO-DIMMs with LEDs
- Keeping it Quick: G.Skill Launches a 32 GB Quad-Channel DDR4-4000 SO-DIMM Kit at CL18
Sources: PC Watch, Xi’an UniIC Semiconductors
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Hurr Durr - Saturday, February 24, 2018 - link
I`d say where they fab it is much more important than what exact procerss is being used. Should we expect DDR4 price to getr back in sane areas now?JamesUK - Saturday, February 24, 2018 - link
Any competition is good. I'm pretty sure the current major players are cooperating in price fixing DDR4, as one never seems to undercut the others do they? I think it's very suspicious.haukionkannel - Saturday, February 24, 2018 - link
Chinese made phones are cheaper, so it is possible that these are cheaper than other memory modules, when they come to the market.I would expect that high end memory will stay very expensive, but bulk ddr4 with not so great timing has to become down because of competition.
FullmetalTitan - Saturday, February 24, 2018 - link
It's not so much price fixing as impossibly high demand across all memory devices.From what we know, Samsung at least shifted production towards the highest profit margin items in their portfolio to take advantage of the demands (leading edge VNAND and high performance memory for datacenters).
This leaves the consumer market under-supplied, which means prices to retailers don't decay over time as they would in a market in equilibrium, there is no motive force pushing anyone to lower prices from the launch price. That just carries over to consumers. And with other component markets in flux, what is normally a variation in the bottom line for retailers is now passed directly to consumers (gold went up? guess those gold interconnects cost more, 8GB modules jump $5, etc.)
FullmetalTitan - Saturday, February 24, 2018 - link
Incidentally, this is a major factor in video card supply chains. No GDDR5X/GDDR6/HBM2 means no capacity increases are possible from AMD/NVIDIA.Just look at the newest Samsung announcement of a SAS drive for data centers with 40TB of NAND and 40GB of DRAM. My over under on that item is ~$20k per unit.
jimjamjamie - Saturday, February 24, 2018 - link
It's finally happening boyspls china save us
WorldWithoutMadness - Sunday, February 25, 2018 - link
"Xi’an UniIC’s DDR4 lineup includes 4 GB and 8 GB SO-DIMMs, 4 GB and 8 GB UDIMMs as well as a 4 GB UDIMM with ECC, all rated for data transfer rate of 2133 MT/s with CL15 15-15 timings at 1.2 V"Only for those with tight money. Enthusiast or performance market is still get thick rod shoved up to their back hole
Ahnilated - Wednesday, February 28, 2018 - link
If you have a black hole, you might want to see a doctor.ElishaBentzi - Wednesday, April 25, 2018 - link
AmenAnymoore - Saturday, February 24, 2018 - link
UnilC doesn’t make 4Gb chips but 1Gb which can be combined into 4GB or 8GB parts, just like advanced 4Gb chips.