Also moving into HBM:

> 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

> the average fixed contract price of PC DRAM DDR4 8Gb stood at $11.50

If that's the case, then why are the cheapest options I can find online multiple times that much?

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.

Like the electric vehicle sector.

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.

https://a.aliexpress.com/_mssanU1

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.

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.

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.

The cure for high prices is high prices.

Awesome. Hopefully storage is next.

More competition is always good

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?

This is just marketing. Why would you sell at 50% of market rate? Chinese production of NAND and DRAM is not significant, it's single digit %

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.

Still no confirmation if CXMT or YMTC actually removed from entity list, until then this is jus cheap domestic inputs.

Great moment to break into the market if you're willing to forfeit profits

Good news. Now we need Chinese manufacturers of DDR4 chipsets and motherboards.

This is good news. The price you pay for jacking up your prices is losing market share.

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.

This decade is going to end with Chinese dominance in everything. Trump and AI handed them everything they need on a platter.