| ▲ | filloooo 10 hours ago |
| Their scale is simply too small to affect the market outside China, majority of their chips will be eaten up by HBM3 production with yet unknown yield rate. They are forbidden to buy foreign equipment beyond their current process node, which is already obsolete, die size is 40% bigger than Samsung, not to mention lithography, the big 3 are using EUV while they are stuck with lobotomized DUV. They can start making some decent money now, but vastly expanding capacity as is means enormous losses if the cycle went downward a few years later, that's how all previous makers went bankrupt. They can squeeze out a bit more performance if they are ready to go beyond their current node using only domestic equipment and be blacklisted by the US government. But the cap is there, unless they can make a working EUV machine in 5 years, they are doomed to be a minor player, if the current cycle even lasts that long. |
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| ▲ | direwolf20 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| They will grow exponentially and catch the western market unawares in 10-15 years with a sudden flood of cheap, effective chips. Just like everything else China makes. Electric vehicles for example. |
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| ▲ | filloooo 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Sure, if they've got production grade EUV, but right now they don't even have production grade DUV. I'm also sure they can go as far as 5nm like SMIC if they really wanted to, since it's strategic for China, but the cost would only be justified if the current cycle lasts long enough. | | |
| ▲ | direwolf20 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I was corrected elsewhere when I thought RAM was more expensive 10 years ago. RAM was actually cheaper 10 years ago, when it was DDR3/DDR4 too. If any company can replicate the 10 year old SOTA, they can bring prices down. | | |
| ▲ | mikestorrent 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is what I expect to happen. 2016's ram was good enough for consumers then and probably still is for a huge class of consumers now. I'd rather 32GB of DDR3 than 8gb of DDR5. | | |
| ▲ | filloooo 33 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | DRAM rarely break, yes, I have bought cottage industry recycled DDR3 with no problem whatsoever. The problem, however, is IO controller support has been dropped, many new CPUs don't even support DDR4 any more, especially mobile ones. | |
| ▲ | renewiltord 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You can get like terabytes of DDR3 used. No one wants that shit. Too slow. Power hog. | | |
| ▲ | nebula8804 12 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | This is where China's crazy solar advantage affects real day to day outcomes. When you have electric costs going into 6-8 cents per kwh then you can run older nodes that slurp more electricity. They aren't even done lowering the price. I've thought about this recently. If the dream of meterless electricity came to fruition then that terabytes of DDR3 could essentially be run until it literally burned out and then recycled back into its core components. The sun provides more power than the entirety of society could possibly currently use and so its a shame that the ram is being tossed instead of used. | |
| ▲ | gunalx an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well yes, but it isn't too cheap for how 8ld it is. | | |
| ▲ | renewiltord 41 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Some dude literally gave away a couple of terabytes on Reddit homelab subreddit the other day. |
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| ▲ | justapassenger 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | China has a luxury of being able to not really care about the cost when it comes to what they view as a strategic advantage. | | |
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| ▲ | Imustaskforhelp 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The problem is that the chances of the bursting of AI bubble seem far more likely than this happening first which you say about 10-15 years. plus, the ram manufacturer cycle moves and does this all the time. Atrioc does a really good job explaining these cycles[0] But the point is that AI demand peaked when the supply was at its lowest which is why we are caught up in this messed up timeline that we live in. And this has sort of happen in the past too and this industries notorious for it (again watch the video, definitely worth it imo) But still it feels like we are in this atleast for a year or two hard. Micron is iirc like suggesting what hundreds of billions of $ in factory investment right now and saying that the fastest might open in early 2027 Some estimates 2028 idk, I do feel like the chances of AI bubble popping around this time are likely too. But still for atleast 1-2 years, we either as consumers or as small vps providers (yes the people who create vps providers are same people like you and me) are absolutely f*ed and the question is around that imo. [0] The AI Tax Has Started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nipeaKC3dWs | | |
| ▲ | cogman10 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | The thing is, even if the market bursts, prices are already inflated. RAM manufacturers know that everything 5xed and they aren't likely going to rush out and drop the price levels to pre-expansion. Once the AI market bursts, you can expect slow and methodical decreases in price (if any). And that will ultimately buy China a lot of time to shove their ram into the market cutting ram manufacturers out of most non-US markets. I think the major memory manufacturers are simply banking on their ability to flood the market if worst comes to worse. That or I could see some standards trickery around DDR6 (or some new BS standard). It'd not shock me if they coordinated with AMD/Intel to keep the standard secret as long as possible simply give themselves a lead in production. | | |
| ▲ | soanvig an hour ago | parent [-] | | Graphic cards prices normalized quite quickly after crypto boom.
Before going nuts for AI training of course. |
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| ▲ | RobotToaster 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They're already producing 10nm DRAM with their current nodes, and they're working on producing 3d DRAM which may make node size somewhat moot. |
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| ▲ | filloooo 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Not 10nm, they are producing with 18.5nm and 17nm now, which technically already is in breach of US restrictions, the US government can blacklist them if they feel like it. 3D DRAM is no magic, it will only give them maybe 2 generations' breathing room if they got the required etching equipment figured out. But others will be doing 3D DRAM with EUV by then. | | |
| ▲ | RobotToaster 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Are you sure? >CXMT has begun mass production of DRAM using a D1z (sub-16nm) process. https://www.globalsmt.net/advanced-packaging/decoding-cxmt-d... They call it "10nm class" later in the article. It's hard to find much concrete info tbh. | |
| ▲ | direwolf20 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If the US government bans the import of RAM, it guarantees the immediate collapse of the US. | | |
| ▲ | filloooo 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't think so, Lutnick just made sure the US wouldn't need to import DRAM with his newest threats. | | |
| ▲ | direwolf20 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Wow. They are 100% tariffing all RAM. RAM is not made in the USA. This destroys all the AI companies, and more. | | |
| ▲ | kube-system 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > RAM is not made in the USA Micron Fab 6 currently makes about 2% of global memory production in Virginia. The plant is currently being expanded and upgraded to Micron's 1a node. | |
| ▲ | CamperBob2 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't understand why we don't just cut to the chase and elect the Joker in 2028. The same people will vote for him, and he won't be any worse for the country. | | |
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| ▲ | zozbot234 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Obsolete process node hardly matters when the rest of the market is bottlenecked on production capacity; small overall scale still might. Expanding capacity may or may not make sense; it depends on your prediction of the way the market will go. |
