Chinese Memory Chips Are Starting to Appear in Mainstream RAM Kits

Chinese memory chips are beginning to enter mainstream RAM products as local manufacturers expand production and global demand from artificial intelligence data centres puts pressure on memory supplies.

Several Chinese memory vendors have reportedly shifted towards domestic suppliers such as ChangXin Memory Technologies, better known as CXMT.

CXMT manufactures DRAM chips, while Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp., or YMTC, produces NAND flash used in storage products.

Domestic Supply

Chinese memory manufacturers receive government support and subsidies as part of the country’s push for greater technological independence.

While Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix can direct more production towards higher-paying data-centre customers, Chinese suppliers are also expected to support domestic industries.

Nelson Duann, senior vice president at Silicon Motion, said China operates as a different market because its domestic DRAM and NAND manufacturers follow strategies that differ from foreign suppliers.

He said government support also gives Chinese manufacturers a responsibility to help maintain stability in the local market.

According to Duann, foreign suppliers generally pursue the highest returns and can allocate more capacity to data centres. Chinese suppliers face greater pressure to continue supplying local industries.

This has helped keep memory and NAND supply and pricing in China relatively stable compared with markets exposed to higher prices from the three largest global memory manufacturers.

New DDR5 Modules

Chinese memory brands Gloway and KingBank have announced DDR5 modules using domestically produced 24Gb, or 3GB, memory chips.

Using eight memory dies, manufacturers can produce individual 24GB modules.

These modules can be sold in dual-DIMM kits with 48GB of total capacity or quad-DIMM kits offering 96GB.

Entering Global Products

CXMT chips are also beginning to appear outside China. Corsair has used CXMT DDR5 chips in some products from its Vengeance memory lineup.

HP and Dell have also started qualifying memory modules using CXMT chips for their products.

However, the performance and overclocking capabilities of these memory kits remain unclear because they have not yet been widely reviewed.

Manufacturing Technology

CXMT has become an increasingly important memory manufacturer despite operating for around 10 years.

US export restrictions prevent Chinese chipmakers from purchasing advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment.

As a result, CXMT has developed its products using older deep ultraviolet manufacturing equipment.

Its current leading process is the 16nm G4 node, which it uses to manufacture DDR5 and LPDDR5X memory chips.

The same technology is used in recent memory products from Corsair, Gloway, and KingBank.

It remains uncertain whether CXMT chips will become more common in global memory products as AI-driven demand continues to tighten supplies.