❯ YMTC-Backed Fund Takes Stake in SOI Micro, Betting on Low-Power Silicon-on-Insulator Route

STAKEAccording to the South China Morning Post, the Changcun Industrial Investment Fund — co-founded by Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC), China’s largest NAND flash maker — has taken a stake in domestic semiconductor manufacturer SOI Micro. The fund was jointly launched in 2023 by YMTC and the Hubei Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund in Wuhan. Its previous investments were concentrated in the memory chip supply chain; this marks its first move into specialty logic manufacturing.

PERSONSOI Micro was founded in Guangzhou in 2022 and is led by Ye Tianchun — former director of the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a past chief technologist for the national “02 Special Project”. The company is developing a low-power logic process aimed at reducing reliance on overseas technology. The silicon-on-insulator route does not chase performance by continuing to shrink linewidths; instead, it engineers the substrate structure. SOI is already commercially mature in RF and IoT chips, but remains a minority approach for general-purpose logic.

PATHAccording to public information, given the restrictions on advanced process equipment, China’s semiconductor industry has only two viable paths: push existing process nodes to their limits, or switch to a technology route less dependent on EUV lithography. Memory-sector capital flowing into logic manufacturing shows the latter path is starting to attract money from within the industry — not just from the national team.

TIMINGSuch bets have validation cycles measured in years and will not change the compute supply landscape in the near term. What deserves attention is the shift in capital flows: when memory makers start putting money behind an alternative logic route, it is a sign that the industry has exhausted its patience with “waiting for equipment restrictions to lift”.

▪ SIGNALMemory makers’ money flowing into logic manufacturing is a sign that the industry has stopped waiting for equipment restrictions to lift.