While we're accustomed to having Samsung, Micron, or SK hynix chips in the best RAM on the market, it may not be long before we start seeing Chinese chips in mainstream memory kits. According to ITHome, many Chinese memory vendors have already defected to domestic producers such as CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies).
Chinese manufacturers such as CXMT, which produces chips for memory, and YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp.), which manufactures NAND for storage, often enjoy heavy government backing and other subsidies. While there isn't an obligation per se, it's understood that domestic chipmakers contribute to China's technological self-sufficiency; therefore, profits somewhat take a back seat.
While foreign chipmakers, such as Samsung, Micron, and SK hynix, are maximizing profits of data centers and the AI boom, Chinese chipmakers prioritize supplying Chinese companies. To a certain extent, the supply and pricing of memory chips, or NAND, in China are relatively stable because it's shielded from the steep premium charged by the Big Three memory giants.
Nelson Duann, Silicon Motion's Senior Vice President, in a recent interview with Tom's Hardware, stated that "China is a different market. China has domestic NAND and DRAM makers, and their strategy is not the same as that of foreign memory suppliers. Because they receive government support, they also have a responsibility to help maintain the health of the local market."
Duann went on to say that "foreign suppliers generally follow the highest-return opportunities and can allocate most of their supply to data centers. Chinese suppliers cannot do that in the same way because the government can provide guidance and encourage them to support certain local industries."
Chinese memory brands Gloway and KingBank recently announced new DDR5 memory modules that highlight the usage of domestic 24Gb (3GB) memory chips. Using a standard eight-die configuration, these companies could produce 24GB memory modules and package them into dual- or quad-DIMM memory kits for 48GB or 96GB of capacity, respectively.
Chinese memory chips, particularly those from CXMT, have begun to spread outside China. Corsair has already implemented CXMT DDR5 in some memory kits from the brand's prestigious Vengeance lineup. Meanwhile, titans such as HP and Dell have begun qualifying CXMT memory kits for their products. Unfortunately, we haven't had the opportunity to review any memory kits with CXMT chips, so their performance and overclocking headroom remain to be seen.
Despite having just 10 years under its belt, CXMT has gradually become an influential player in the chipmaking game. Thanks to U.S. export controls that have effectively cut China off from acquiring advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tools, CXMT has made all its progress with trailing-edge deep ultraviolet (DUV) chipmaking tools. The company's 16nm (G4) node is its current flagship manufacturing process, which CMXT uses to produce DDR5 and LPDDR5X chips, or the same ones found in recent Corsair, Gloway, and KingBank memory kits. Whether the use of CXMT DRAM becomes more widespread as a result of the AI supply crunch remains to be seen.
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