This feels like a classic business blunder. Focus hard on a single business segment, leaving an opening in the market for your competitors. Not because it wasn't profitable, but because it wasn't profitable enough for you, right now. Only downside is that now you've created an opening for a new player in the market.
This feels like a short coming of western business/stock market thinking. Focusing on profit within the next few quarters, and not caring about the longer term consequences. For all it's flaws and shady business practises at least China can think beyond a single fiscal year.
As a outside observer, NAND and DRAM prices have skyrocket ed with the AI infrastructure boom just as the China-based fabs are coming online.
It is wise for these Chinese fabs to eventually use a very aggressive dumping strategy to price well below cost push out other players forever, especially in DRAM.
But right now it seems they can max out their supply capacity without selling below cost.
Appears to me like China's endless state led (often unproductive) investment in semiconductor manufacturing subsidies (for decades) is about to pay off with some industry dominance soon.
DDR4 going from $1.35 to $11.50 in a year shows this market was already distorted before CXMT showed up.
Legacy DRAM is still over half of Samsung and SK hynix's production capacity. That's where the volume pain actually lands while they're betting everything on HBM4.
Has DDR5 caught up to DDR4 latency yet? I remember it was worse at least in the beginning. There's more bandwidth per channel but a hw design can always add more channels for the desired BW. Not so for latency.
Is there a reason GPU's don't use insane "blocks" of sdcard slots (for massively parallel io) so the model weights don't need to pass through a limited PCI bus?
That explains the cheap DDR4 DIMMs on AliExpress. Can get 2x 16GB DDR4-3200 DIMMs for A$252 delivered to Australia. A local PC store has same spec “name brand” RAM for around $380-$400.
I was wondering when people would find out about CXMT. I wish them luck and hope the US doesn't sabotage them. We need diversity and competition right now.
> CXMT is in the process of converting wafer capacity equivalent to about 20 percent of its total DRAM output — some 60,000 wafers per month — at its Shanghai plant to the fourth-generation HBM3 chip production
>> as if Samsung didn't receive government subsidies when it was developing
That's because Samsung didn't get gov't subsidies when they developed DRAM in the early 80's. Semiconductors weren't really among the targeted industries by the South Korean gov't and were largely ignored as the govt prioritized HCI (Heavy Chemical Industry), shipbuilding, steel, and automobiles. The gov't didn't understand the potential of semiconductors and viewed the growing industry as risky investment.
Unlike China or Taiwan, the South Korea's semiconductor industry was very much organic, started by a private company, Korea Semiconductor, in the mid 70's which was later acquired by Samsung and became Samsung Semiconductors Inc. And they bled millions of their own money until their own DRAM came out in the early 80's.
The gov't still believed the industry was too risky and costly even after Samsung's development of 64K and 256K DRAM in 1983 and 1984. Samsung burnt through their own cash stockpile cross-financed by other divisions, or borrowed from foreign banks and financial institutions. There was really no major support until 1986 when ETRI, a gov't sponsored research institution, stepped in to promote cooperation among domestic semiconductor players -- ie, so Samsung could teach and help bring up other chaebols LG and Hyundai up to speed.
So PLEASE no more insane whataboutism to defend China's neo-mercantile practices or illegal state subsidies.
Apple has planned to explore cooperation with Chinese memory chip manufacturers Yangtze Storage (YMTC) and Changxin Storage (CXMT) to strive for more favorable supply contracts [from the big three]
Back in the 1990’s everyone had to have a unix workstation for unclear reasons (why not run Linux for < 10% the cost?).
There were crazy bubble economics schemes that meant doomed startups got unix boxes for free.
When the bubble popped, the workstation vendors hit a triple whammy: Inferior $/perf, unlimited used inventory at low prices, and an economic downturn.
The same exact thing is happening now, except the hardware is being jammed into data center models.
Anyway, when the bubble pops, people making affordable consumer stuff will be fine (like this CXMT company).
People that went all-in on firing all non-hyperscaler customers (like micron/crucial) will find they’re building the wrong chips for end-user devices, there is no server market anymore (for a few years), and they have a total addressable market of maybe 1000 distressed companies, globally.
I predict the people making these decisions and destroying their companies to juice Q2 2026 financial outlook numbers will genuinely be surprised when the bankruptcies start.
great comment. actually reminds me of how intel screwed up with developing the first 64 bit processor, then amd came along with theirs and managed to force intel into compatibility.
All these big companies think they're too big to fail until they do.
at the end of the day the consumers hold the purchasing power. ignore them at your peril.
Everyone here wants to be able to buy RAM at a reasonable price again.
After reading articles about CXMT and repeatedly reviewing the comments here - my take is there's nothing in play that will lead to reasonably priced RAM anytime soon.
If I'm wrong please illuminate us. We could use some hope.
Geopolitics and industrial policty aside, I think it's important to check how stable and reliable these chips are. I wouldn't count on them being on par with "western" ones. Correct me if I am wrong here.
28 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 46.0 ms ] threadThis feels like a short coming of western business/stock market thinking. Focusing on profit within the next few quarters, and not caring about the longer term consequences. For all it's flaws and shady business practises at least China can think beyond a single fiscal year.
It is wise for these Chinese fabs to eventually use a very aggressive dumping strategy to price well below cost push out other players forever, especially in DRAM.
But right now it seems they can max out their supply capacity without selling below cost.
Appears to me like China's endless state led (often unproductive) investment in semiconductor manufacturing subsidies (for decades) is about to pay off with some industry dominance soon.
Like the electric vehicle sector.
Once established, the Chinese vendors will retain most the market share if the quality is ok. The SK/JP vendors are making a big mistake.
Legacy DRAM is still over half of Samsung and SK hynix's production capacity. That's where the volume pain actually lands while they're betting everything on HBM4.
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mssanU1
> CXMT is in the process of converting wafer capacity equivalent to about 20 percent of its total DRAM output — some 60,000 wafers per month — at its Shanghai plant to the fourth-generation HBM3 chip production
If that's the case, then why are the cheapest options I can find online multiple times that much?
That's because Samsung didn't get gov't subsidies when they developed DRAM in the early 80's. Semiconductors weren't really among the targeted industries by the South Korean gov't and were largely ignored as the govt prioritized HCI (Heavy Chemical Industry), shipbuilding, steel, and automobiles. The gov't didn't understand the potential of semiconductors and viewed the growing industry as risky investment.
Unlike China or Taiwan, the South Korea's semiconductor industry was very much organic, started by a private company, Korea Semiconductor, in the mid 70's which was later acquired by Samsung and became Samsung Semiconductors Inc. And they bled millions of their own money until their own DRAM came out in the early 80's.
The gov't still believed the industry was too risky and costly even after Samsung's development of 64K and 256K DRAM in 1983 and 1984. Samsung burnt through their own cash stockpile cross-financed by other divisions, or borrowed from foreign banks and financial institutions. There was really no major support until 1986 when ETRI, a gov't sponsored research institution, stepped in to promote cooperation among domestic semiconductor players -- ie, so Samsung could teach and help bring up other chaebols LG and Hyundai up to speed.
So PLEASE no more insane whataboutism to defend China's neo-mercantile practices or illegal state subsidies.
There were crazy bubble economics schemes that meant doomed startups got unix boxes for free.
When the bubble popped, the workstation vendors hit a triple whammy: Inferior $/perf, unlimited used inventory at low prices, and an economic downturn.
The same exact thing is happening now, except the hardware is being jammed into data center models.
Anyway, when the bubble pops, people making affordable consumer stuff will be fine (like this CXMT company).
People that went all-in on firing all non-hyperscaler customers (like micron/crucial) will find they’re building the wrong chips for end-user devices, there is no server market anymore (for a few years), and they have a total addressable market of maybe 1000 distressed companies, globally.
I predict the people making these decisions and destroying their companies to juice Q2 2026 financial outlook numbers will genuinely be surprised when the bankruptcies start.
After reading articles about CXMT and repeatedly reviewing the comments here - my take is there's nothing in play that will lead to reasonably priced RAM anytime soon.
If I'm wrong please illuminate us. We could use some hope.
Chinese economy is a carefully engineered financial and industrial capitalism, that focuses on what real people need in the real world.
American oligarchy really focus on financial engineering with profits on stock prices and quarterly profits.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-03-28-mn-698-st...