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CXMT has been offering DDR4 chips at about half the prevailing market rate

koreaherald.com

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Re: CXMT has been offering DDR4 chips at about half the prevailing market rate

#51
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CXMT sells the vast majority of their bits at the prevailing market rate, just like everyone else. They are adding capacity as quickly as they can, with a 5-10 year planning horizon, just like everyone else. It’s really not that deep!

> They are adding capacity as quickly as they can [...], just like everyone else Are you sure? In the past they explicitly said they are not going to increase production. https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/memory-maker...

PRC asked them to curtail DDR4 production so they didn't bottom out the market a year or two ago, and to focus on latest gen development, like HBM. They were the world leader in cost efficient DDR4 production at the time.

Re: CXMT has been offering DDR4 chips at about half the prevailing market rate

#52
post #19

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 %

Does the last part of your comment explain it? They need revenue to expand capacity and the market has opened up a window to become a bigger supplier while still being profitable.

Re: CXMT has been offering DDR4 chips at about half the prevailing market rate

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally fail to see the downside of any manufacturer selling forever at a loss, except for the manufacturer itself.

You become dependent on the supplier. The downside in general is that other countries lose production capacity in steel, heavy industry, semiconductors, machine tools etc - industries that took decades to build and can't be easily replaced. Also they gradually lose the ability to meaningfully innovate in those sectors because there's no grounding against production reality anymore. This has geopolitical consequences…

> The downside in general is that other countries lose production capacity in steel, heavy industry, semiconductors, machine tools etc - industries that took decades to build and can't be easily replaced.

That's not really what happens though. You don't actually "lose" capacity, you just move to higher-valued special niches within the overall industry because (1) you can afford to, while low-cost competitors can't and (2) you can no longer expect to be the lowest-cost supplier for the bulk of the market. That's a win-win development and something to be encouraged.

Re: CXMT has been offering DDR4 chips at about half the prevailing market rate

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You become dependent on the supplier. The downside in general is that other countries lose production capacity in steel, heavy industry, semiconductors, machine tools etc - industries that took decades to build and can't be easily replaced. Also they gradually lose the ability to meaningfully innovate in those sectors because there's no grounding against production reality anymore. This has geopolitical consequences…

> The downside in general is that other countries lose production capacity in steel, heavy industry, semiconductors, machine tools etc - industries that took decades to build and can't be easily replaced. That's not really what happens though. You don't actually "lose" capacity, you just move to higher-valued special niches within the overall industry because (1) you can afford to, while low-cost competitors can't an…

[deleted]

Re: CXMT has been offering DDR4 chips at about half the prevailing market rate

#56
post #46
post #31

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.

> add more channels and unfortunately increase latency even more with registered DIMMs. Comparing bandwidth increase (50 GB/s) to the stagnated latency (~80..120 ns total, less than ~0.1 GB/s) over last decades, I'm wondering, whether one still can call today's RAM random memory (though sure it can be accessed randomly). Similar to hard disk drives. Up to 300 MB/s sequentially but only up to less than 1 MB/s 4KB rand…

People have been wondering that for a while: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19304281

Re: CXMT has been offering DDR4 chips at about half the prevailing market rate

#58
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure you can lock great prices for ram for 2035 delivery.

If only on principle alone, could one secure a contract to buy a few TB of DDR5 memory to be delivered in 2035? And if so, how?

Few TB probably not, but few EB I think you will be able to make a contract.

Re: CXMT has been offering DDR4 chips at about half the prevailing market rate

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You become dependent on the supplier. The downside in general is that other countries lose production capacity in steel, heavy industry, semiconductors, machine tools etc - industries that took decades to build and can't be easily replaced. Also they gradually lose the ability to meaningfully innovate in those sectors because there's no grounding against production reality anymore. This has geopolitical consequences…

> The downside in general is that other countries lose production capacity in steel, heavy industry, semiconductors, machine tools etc - industries that took decades to build and can't be easily replaced. That's not really what happens though. You don't actually "lose" capacity, you just move to higher-valued special niches within the overall industry because (1) you can afford to, while low-cost competitors can't an…

> You don't actually "lose" capacity, you just move to higher-valued special niches within the overall industry

That's not what people mean by "lose" capacity.

Suppose DRAM companies expand capacity because prices are high, then demand levels off, the price crashes, and they all go out of business except for the one in China which gets a government bailout. That's fine, right? We're not interested in making DRAM, that's a fungible commodity, we want to make iPhones or something. (They make those too anymore, but never mind that.)

What happens now if China restricts what you can buy to give an advantage to their own companies who are trying to displace you in the higher-valued special niches? Or just raises the price for you and not them? What if there's a trade war? Or a conventional war?

When you still have a domestic industry, you go to them and have a source for the commodity. If only one country becomes the sole global supplier and that country isn't even particularly friendly, that's bad.

Re: CXMT has been offering DDR4 chips at about half the prevailing market rate

#60
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok but this is how the market is supposed to work. If the incumbents aren't doing what their customers want, then competitors can rise and fill the gap and compete. This isn't a shortcoming, it's a competitive market working as intended.

The market doing what it's supposed to do does not negate that the market segment has only been left open because of overly myopic businesses.

The market is actively trying to solve it right now. Micron is investing $200B in new fabs. Everyone is trying to ramp up production.

Yes, identifying a problem is easy. But solving shortages in all cases requires perfect knowledge of future demand. So, good luck.

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