Comment by Animats
13 hours ago
This is another place where modern capitalism struggles in an area that requires large capital investment producing payoff after years of startup costs, and the buy side is volatile. We've seen this recently with rare earths, copper, and some other minerals. DRAM is almost in the same category.
China has an advantage here, once domestic DRAM production finally gets going. DRAM policy can be set strategically. China's economic planners may choose to provide DRAM to domestic manufacturers rather than export parts, even if exporting parts would be more profitable in the near term. That's already being done in raw materials. Conversely, if external suppliers have lower prices, there may be a policy decision to buy domestically to keep the domestic manufacturers going. Done with the goal of leveling production, this can work. Done stupidly, it becomes a money drain, of course.
Probably China controls the DRAM market around 2030 or so.
what share of the DRAM market does China control today?
About 7.6%.[1] That's Changxin Memory Technologies. That makes them #4 in DRAM, after Samsung, Hynix, and Micron. They're still only a third the size of Micron, the last US manufacturer. They have a lot of scaling up to do, but they can make current-generation DRAM.
Changxin just became very profitable, due to high DRAM prices. They're planning an IPO. And, of course, building more fabs. Yangtze Memory Technologies isn't as far along, but they're building a new fab and planning an IPO.
Both of these companies were created in 2016 as part of a national effort to become a force in the DRAM industry. It took a while to get the technology working. Now it works, and they can scale up.
[1] https://chinabizinsider.com/how-the-economics-of-the-global-...