Chinese DRAM/SSDs makers have an advantage over American and Taiwanese suppliers
SMI's SVP claims Chinese DRAM and SSD manufacturers have a key advantage over American and Taiwanese rivals due to state guidance securing local supply, while major memory makers prioritize higher margins in the AI market.
Background
- Silicon Motion (SMI) is a major Taiwan-based controller chip designer for SSDs; its SVP recently argued that Chinese memory makers now enjoy a structural advantage over US, Taiwanese, and Korean rivals.
- The "Big Three" (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron) dominate global DRAM/NAND production but are increasingly diverting capacity and R&D toward high-profit AI and HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) products, leaving mainstream consumer/industrial SSD markets relatively underserved.
- Chinese firms like YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technologies), CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies), and Longsys are being actively supported under China's industrial policy and "state guidance," which helps them secure local fabs and stable supply for commodity DRAM and SSDs — even as Western sanctions restrict their access to advanced chipmaking equipment.
- The result: Chinese suppliers can reliably supply mid-range, non-AI storage components, while global leaders prioritize the AI boom. This gives system builders in China a cost and availability edge, and could reshape the global memory supply chain over time.