China makes key progress in closing mobile memory chip gap with South Korea, US as tech war rages
- CXMT said on Wednesday that it has produced China’s first lower-power Double Data Rate 5 DRAM chip, used in mobile devices like smartphones
- Breakthrough comes at a time when China is reporting slow but steady progress in semiconductor development and manufacturing technologies
A leading Chinese semiconductor company has made the country’s first new generation of advanced mobile memory chips, achieving key progress in narrowing the gap with its South Korean and US rivals.
ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) said in a statement on its website on Wednesday that it has produced China’s first lower power Double Data Rate 5 (LPDDR5) dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip, a new generation of memory chip that was first introduced by South Korea’s Samsung Electronics in 2018.
The breakthrough, which was achieved amid stepped-up US sanctions to hamper China’s development in advanced chip manufacturing, will enable China to cut reliance on imported products, which are used in electronic gadgets such as mobile phones and laptops.
According to Hefei-based CXMT, one of its products, the 12-gigabyte (GB) version that packs 8 dies each with a capacity of 12 gigabits (Gb), has already been validated by Chinese smartphone makers including Xiaomi and Transsion.
01:56
Biden to introduce new restrictions on US investments in China, declares tech ‘emergency’
The LPDDR5 memory chip breakthrough comes at a time when China is reporting slow but steady progress in semiconductor development and manufacturing technologies, even though the country has been denied access to crucial high-end lithography systems from Dutch firm ASML, as well as some Japanese suppliers.
Among recent breakthroughs, Huawei Technologies surprised the world by launching its Mate 60 Pro smartphone powered by a locally made advanced chip.