Jack Ma's YF Capital invests in Chinese chipmaker InnoStar

YF Capital, a private equity firm linked to Jack Ma, has acquired a 2.1% stake in InnoStar Semiconductor, according to a recent business filing.

InnoStar is a Shanghai-based company that develops resistive rangdom access memory (ReRAM) chips.

The investment, made through YF Capital affiliate Hainan Yunfeng Fund Centre, makes the firm InnoStar’s 14th-largest shareholder as of December 17.

Other new investors include Real Power Capital, which is backed by the Shanghai government and now holds a 0.4% stake, and Hong Kong’s Weihua Electronics, with 0.2%.

Ant Group, also founded by Jack Ma, invested in InnoStar earlier in August 2025.

InnoStar was founded in 2019 and focuses on non-volatile memory technology.

🔗 Source: South China Morning Post

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

InnoStar ReRAM in mass production at 28/22 nm for auto MCUs

InnoStar finished China’s first 28/22 nm resistive random access memory (ReRAM) 12-inch (300 mm) pilot line (used to validate processes) 1. It moved to mass production in early 2022, second only to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) at these nodes, and ByteDance invested to use the chips in Pico virtual reality (VR) headsets 2.
Infineon Technologies runs RRAM in its AURIX TC4x automotive MCU line on TSMC 28 nm, while Renesas Electronics launched magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM) MCUs on TSMC 22 nm 3.
ReRAM delivers low power with byte addressability 4. It also offers endurance near flash, retention near flash, plus resistance to magnetic attacks, which suits over-the-air (OTA) updates in cars 4.

MCU and edge AI vendors can target Chinese OEMs shifting to ReRAM

Embedded flash (eFlash) hits capacity and scaling limits at 28 nm, so next-gen MCUs will pick MRAM, phase-change memory (PCM), or ReRAM 3.
Chip design service firms and electronic design automation (EDA) vendors can build firmware migration stacks, secure boot code plus reliability tests for Chinese automotive and Internet of Things (IoT) teams moving from NOR flash to ReRAM.
NOR flash is set to reach $1.64 billion by 2028 at 14% CAGR, while ReRAM should hit $2.16 billion by 2030 at 17.2% CAGR 4. Vendors can watch which China MCU makers post ReRAM roadmaps or wins in 2024–2025, then localize controller intellectual property (IP) cores plus test methods for them.