Several days ago, Shichao was surfing the internet when he suddenly came across a shocking news about an electronics factory. Our company, Yangtze Memory, has sued the industry giant Micron in the United States!
Okay, one is China's top storage chip company, and the other is a long-established American factory. These two have now clashed, which is quite a big deal.
Moreover, this time it's not just a small conflict; it directly released a pile of evidence, accusing Micron of malicious defamation and spreading rumors.
It should be noted that in recent years, Micron has been giving Yangtze Memory all sorts of trouble. The two have had a grudge for years, and they've been fighting for several years. Today's big drama is a culmination of long-standing resentment.
But who would have thought that Yangtze Memory's move today would put Micron in the most uncomfortable position.
Yes, Chinese companies have gradually moved from being on the defensive to now being able to reverse the situation and even choke out the neck of an American giant. This plot development, I say, is as twisty as the game "Ace Attorney."
This story starts with a small chip that everyone can't do without.
Many friends should know that your photos of your first love stored for years, the chat records you can't bear to delete on WeChat, and various 3A games downloaded from Steam, are all safely preserved mainly thanks to a type of chip called NAND flash memory.
This chip is the heart of solid-state drives and mobile phone storage. Our requirements for it are very simple: the bigger the capacity, the better; the cheaper the price, the better.
To meet this simple wish, chip manufacturers have been focusing on two paths for over twenty years.
One path is to cram as much as possible on a flat surface, which we often hear about as SLC, MLC, TLC, QLC. It's like a room: SLC only houses one person, with the best experience but extremely expensive; QLC fits four people, lowering costs but also reducing lifespan and speed.
However, this approach soon reached its limit. If we keep cramming, the stability and lifespan of the chips will collapse.
When the flat buildings were no longer feasible, another technical route became a savior for chip factories: 3D NAND.
In short, this technology is not about building flat buildings anymore but instead constructing skyscrapers. Since flat space is limited, we build upwards, and the higher the floors, the more people (data) can live there.
Companies like Samsung and Micron have mastered this building technique over the past decade, often building dozens or even hundreds of layers.
But here's the problem: the higher the building, the greater the pressure on the foundation. This foundation is the control circuitry at the bottom of the chip.
With more floors, signal delay and heat issues arise, and the building might collapse before completion, resulting in defective chips.
When everyone was struggling with the foundation issue, Yangtze Memory took a different approach and came up with a powerful strategy: "Xtacking."
Different from others who try to build both the building and the foundation on the same land, Yangtze Memory plays "building with Lego blocks."
In short, they build the building (storage units) on A wafer and lay the foundation (control circuits) on B wafer, then perfectly assemble these two together without any glue in between.
The benefits of this approach are obvious: shorter data transmission distance, higher heat dissipation efficiency, and the ability to use optimal processes for both building and laying the foundation, without interfering with each other.
According to Yangtze Memory, this technology can shorten product development time by at least three months and production cycle by 20%, which is truly astonishing.
Even more impressive is that Yangtze Memory registered "Xtacking" as a series of patents as early as 2018, creating a high and thick "moat" around itself.
This means that when giants like Micron want to build super tall buildings with more than 400 layers, they will find that the best roads are all buried with patent mines by Yangtze Memory.
Seeing Yangtze Memory's technology getting stronger and products becoming more competitive (with 232-layer products entering Apple's supply chain), directly threatening their market share, Micron became anxious.
If they couldn't beat them on the battlefield, they turned to underhanded tactics.
In 2022, Micron was accused of secretly lobbying and successfully pushing the U.S. government to place Yangtze Memory on the "Entity List." This move was a direct blow, causing Yangtze Memory to be unable to purchase advanced U.S. equipment, severely affecting the production of high-end products above 128 layers.
They thought this move could directly kill off their opponent in the cradle, but Micron never expected it to be just the beginning of the war.
In late 2023, after regaining strength, Yangtze Memory directly sued Micron in the California court. The reason was straightforward: the 96-layer, 128-layer, 176-layer, and 232-layer products you sell all infringe on my eight core patents!
This marked the official start of the patent battle.
Micron obviously didn't accept it and immediately counter-sued Yangtze Memory, while applying to the patent office to declare 12 of Yangtze Memory's patents invalid. This set of "denial - retaliation - cutting off the source" punches is a common tactic used by giants against upstarts.
But Yangtze Memory clearly came prepared, and directly engaged in a fierce legal battle with Micron in court.
By 2024, the situation escalated further, and Yangtze Memory launched a "final strike" in the legal realm: demanding the court to force Micron to hand over its core technical secrets.
Specifically, it's a 73-page document containing technical details such as "gate stack layer thickness parameters," "etching gas ratio formulas," "storage unit programming voltage curves," and even the latest chip source code.
Whether or not you copied the patent, just show me the technical documents, and if you didn't copy, how could I possibly accuse you?
To be honest, this move is like putting a knife at Micron's throat. To hand it over or not?
If you hand it over, it means exposing your core trade secrets to the opponent, how can you survive afterwards?
If you don't hand it over, you'll be at a disadvantage in court, which implies that you're guilty and the infringement accusations may be confirmed.
This move forced Micron into a corner.
Naturally, Micron was completely panicked and immediately brought out its last shield — national security.
They protested fiercely to the court, saying that Yangtze Memory is on the "Entity List" and has close ties with the Chinese government. Giving these technical documents involving America's core competitiveness to it would pose an "unacceptable" risk to America's national and economic security.
However, the Eastern District of Texas Court and the Federal Circuit Court rejected Micron's request, respectively.
The reason was: you can't prove a direct connection to defense, and our court isn't run by Guanxi. There are strict confidentiality measures, allowing only the opposing lawyer to view it, not to make copies or take photos, so it won't be leaked. Your concerns are unnecessary.
Driven to the edge, Micron filed a case with the U.S. Supreme Court on May 23, 2025, requesting an emergency writ to prevent the disclosure of technical documents.
Just as everyone thought the climax of this drama would be the Supreme Court's decision, Yangtze Memory struck again, opening up a "second battlefield."
Almost at the same time that Micron was crying to the Supreme Court about being a "victim," Yangtze Memory filed a new lawsuit in the Washington federal court, this time charging: commercial defamation and unfair competition!
In the complaint, Yangtze Memory accused Micron and a PR company called DCI of colluding to fund a website called "China Tech Threat," which has long spread rumors, maliciously defaming Yangtze Memory's chips as containing "spy software," seriously damaging Yangtze Memory's reputation and causing millions of dollars in lost orders.
This move shows that Yangtze Memory fully understands the business war.
You're playing the "national security" card in the Supreme Court, portraying yourself as a white lotus defending American interests, right?
I'll tell the world in return that you're the one who's been scheming behind the scenes, using underhanded methods to smear opponents.
At this point, the feud has evolved from a purely technical competition into a political game and patent litigation, finally exploding into a full-blown war over core secrets and commercial reputation.
After talking so much, what does this clash between gods have to do with us?
It has a lot to do with us.
First, the most direct impact is that thanks to Yangtze Memory, the prices of high-end SSDs have been lowered.
Previously, you couldn't even imagine a 2T solid-state drive, but now you can get it for a few hundred dollars. This cheap opportunity shouldn't be taken away by Americans.
Secondly, the outcome of this case may completely change the global storage chip landscape.
If Yangtze Memory wins, it not only means that Micron may face huge compensation and partial product bans, but more importantly, it proves that Chinese companies can rely on their strong patent technologies to confront top global giants on the international stage and win.
This is a strong injection for the entire Chinese semiconductor industry.
For Micron, if it is eventually forced to disclose some technical secrets or pay high patent licensing fees, its advantage in future technological competition will be greatly weakened.
Of course, considering the underlying geopolitical factors, this case may ultimately end in some form of settlement. But regardless, Yangtze Memory has already proven one thing: relying solely on underhanded tactics cannot defeat an opponent who truly possesses core technologies.
To be fair, Yangtze Memory started from a difficult beginning, was chased by giants, and now holds a patent sword to fight back from a desperate situation. Indeed, this matches the old saying, "In thirty years, the river changes course; don't mock the young for being poor."
And this century-long battle surrounding technology, law, and the market, the real fun may have just begun.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7523790860991922703/
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