Apple considers Chinese memory chips for iPhones – likely for China

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DRAM chips for RAM and NAND flash chips for SSDs are currently expensive and, above all, scarce. Therefore, Apple is reportedly considering buying such memory chips from Chinese manufacturers CXMT (DRAM) and YMTC (Flash) in the future. They are likely to be installed first in iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks that Apple also sells in China.

The decision, especially for iPhones with CXMT-DRAM, would be an important milestone for CXMT. This is because in current iPhones, the LPDDR5X SDRAM chips are not simply soldered onto the board next to the A17, A18, or A19. Instead, they sit together with the SoC die in a common package. Apple reportedly uses TSMC's InFO-PoP packaging technology for this.

For iPhones with CXMT-DRAM, CXMT would therefore have to supply LPDDR5X dies to TSMC. There, they would then be connected with the Axx SoCs from TSMC production and sent to the contract manufacturer who produces the smartphones for the respective target market.

CXMT and YMTC on the rise

ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. (YMTC) are among the semiconductor manufacturers that the Chinese state has been specifically promoting with high subsidies for years, aiming to reduce the country's dependence on foreign suppliers.

Both companies certainly want to take advantage of the currently favorable situation to expand their respective customer base.

As early as 2018, there were speculations that Apple wanted to buy NAND flash from YMTC. In 2022, it was then reported that Apple had decided against it. One of the reasons cited was the risk of sales restrictions for iPhones in the US, as the US government could impose an embargo on YMTC. However, in view of the memory chip shortage, the US government might relax import regulations.

The three leading DRAM manufacturers Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are also using the supplier market to enforce higher prices. They are currently achieving the highest profits with High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for AI compute accelerators. Therefore, they are redirecting significant manufacturing capacities to this extremely rapidly growing market.

The much smaller competitors Nanya, Powerchip (PSMC), and Winbond are also benefiting from the demand, but can neither deliver large quantities nor the latest DDR RAM generations. In NAND flash, the duo of WD and Kioxia (formerly Toshiba) is also still in the race with their own fabs.

CXMT already supplies LPDDR5X

In November 2025, CXMT demonstrated LPDDR5X chips from its own production for the first time. There is also high demand for them within China from major smartphone manufacturers such as Huawei, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, and Xiaomi.

Estimates suggest that CXMT's manufacturing capacity is currently less than 5 percent of the global DRAM market. However, this would make CXMT larger than the Taiwanese manufacturers.

Currently, major US PC manufacturers such as Dell and HP are also reportedly considering purchasing RAM from CXMT.

YMTC flash already sold worldwide

The leading SSD brands Samsung, Kioxia, WD/Sandisk, Micron, and Solidigm (SK Hynix) each use their own NAND flash memory chips. So-called third-party manufacturers, such as the leading company Kingston by a huge margin, but also Adata or Transcend, on the other hand, have to buy NAND flash chips or complete wafers with them. The quality of the chips is comparable to that of competitors.

Some third-party SSD manufacturers are already using YMTC flash for the international market, for example, Teamgroup.

(ciw)