The Chinese company ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), one of the main memory manufacturers in the country, has announced the start of mass production of its fifth-generation DRAM platform. The advance seeks to reinforce China's position in a market dominated by Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron.
The company claims that the new platform allows for the manufacture of chips with smaller structures and increases the amount of memory that can be integrated into each chip. CXMT places the separation of certain structures in its memory matrix at 11.95 nanometers and states that it has reached manufacturing levels comparable to the most advanced nodes currently produced at scale.
New chips for smartphones
Along with the announcement, CXMT has presented two LPDDR5X products of 24 gigabits primarily intended for smartphones and other portable devices. According to the company, these chips can store 50% more data than their equivalent products from the previous generation and have already begun mass production.
CXMT also claims that its new platform allows for at least 50% more gross units per wafer than its fourth generation, using 8-gigabit chips as a reference. Reuters itself specifies that this figure measures the potential number of chips before discarding defective units and does not equate to the final percentage of chips that pass quality tests.
The challenge to major manufacturers
DRAM functions as temporary working memory in devices such as phones, computers, and servers. Its global manufacturing is concentrated in a small group of companies, including Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron. The expansion of CXMT introduces a new Chinese supplier into a strategic market for the tech industry.
The announcement also comes in a context of U.S. restrictions on the export of certain equipment and programs used to manufacture advanced semiconductors in China. CXMT claims to have developed part of its processes through computer simulations and in collaboration with Chinese semiconductor equipment manufacturers.
The manufacturer has indicated that its fifth generation uses a technique called quadruple patterning, which allows for the creation of smaller structures through the repetition of different manufacturing stages. The claims about the technological level achieved and the performance improvements come from the company itself and still require independent verification.