China produces its own DDR5 memory
CXMT succeeds in producing competitive DDR5 RAM. Chinese manufacturers use it to build affordable DDR5 6000 bars.
Previously, Kingbank modules were only available with South Korean memory. There is now a Chinese option up to DDR5-6000.
(Image: Kingbank)
China is now apparently able to produce its own DDR5-standard memory chips. ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) supplies the DDR5 SDRAM components required for this.
This was first reported by the Chinese website Chosun at Christmas time. The two Chinese bar manufacturers Gloway and Kingbank presented DDR5 6000 kits in parallel – both advertise with chips "made in China". The latencies of CL36-36-36-80 and CL36-40-40-96 are on a par with kits equipped with memory chips from the world market leaders Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron.
The price of the Chinese kits is also impressive: 32 GB consisting of two modules will cost 499 yuan. This corresponds to just under 70 euros. In this country, comparable kits start at just under 85 euros.
Chip yield unclear
There is disagreement about the background information. Chinese media claim a chip yield of around 80 percent for CXMT, which would be a good and presumably profitable figure. South Korean media, on the other hand, are quoting market observers who believe in a yield of 10 to 20 percent and a low production capacity.
In the latter case, production would only be economically viable with subsidies.
It is known that China has invested the equivalent of many billions of euros in the development of CXMT. The company has been producing DDR4 RAM since 2019 – at the time, there was talk of more than 20 billion euros in subsidies.
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Difficult further development
Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron have been producing DDR5 chips since 2021. However, the technological lead over CXMT is likely to grow again in the coming years: Samsung and SK Hynix have long been manufacturing their memory using advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) exposure technology, which Chinese companies do not have access to due to export restrictions. Micron wants to switch to EUV from 2025 with the "1-Gamma" production generation.
Due to its short wavelength, EUV makes it easier to expose ever finer structures. Without EUV, several exposure passes are necessary for similarly fine structures, which are potentially prone to errors. A disadvantage for China is that the industry leader ASML is only allowed to sell older models of lithography systems with older DUV (deep ultraviolet) technology to China. These are not able to align the silicon wafers on which the chips are exposed as precisely – this involves precision in the nanometer range.
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