Taiwan memory manufacturer Nanya Technology Corp. and IC design firm Etron Technology announced a joint venture to develop specialized high-bandwidth memory solutions for edge artificial intelligence applications. The companies will invest NT$500 million (US$16.8 million) in the new entity, with Nanya holding an 80% stake and Etron taking 20%.
The venture, headquartered in Hsinchu City, represents Nanya’s continued effort to carve out a niche in the competitive memory market dominated by Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. Rather than competing directly with industry giants in data center applications, Nanya plans to focus on customized HBM products for edge devices including AI personal computers, smartphones, robotics and automotive systems.
The partnership aims to launch new HBM products by the end of 2026, according to the companies’ statement. This timeline follows Nanya’s December 2024 investment of NT$660 million (US$22.1 million) in subsidiary PieceMakers Technology to develop customized DRAM designs.
Nanya’s strategy reflects the challenges facing smaller memory producers. Company president Lee Pei-ing acknowledged that Nanya is “unlikely to compete with those chipmakers by capacity, cost efficiency or investment scale, especially those from China”. The company has faced pressure from Chinese rival Changxin Memory Technologies, which has capacity seven times larger than Nanya’s operations.
The edge AI memory market remains largely unproven compared to the established data center segment. While major memory suppliers increasingly allocate capacity to high-performance HBM3 and HBM3E products for AI servers, demand patterns for edge applications remain uncertain. Nanya expects customized HBM products to be “critical for the company’s growth” as AI capabilities migrate from cloud infrastructure to consumer devices.
The joint venture will leverage Nanya’s 10-nanometer class DRAM manufacturing capabilities combined with Etron’s integrated circuit design expertise. Nanya has also partnered with packaging specialist Formosa Advanced Technologies to develop 3D through-silicon via processes essential for HBM production.
Despite these initiatives, Nanya continues to struggle with profitability. The company aims to achieve a quarterly turnaround from loss to profit in 2025, banking on recovery in DRAM pricing and successful execution of its specialized memory strategy.
