China's CXMT says its fifth-generation DRAM is in mass production and 'on par' with the industry's best

CXMT, China's largest DRAM maker, says its fifth-generation manufacturing platform is in mass production. At the 2026 World Manufacturing Convention in Hefei on Sunday, vice president Luo Xiaodong said its process capability was "on par with the most advanced mass-produced nodes out there in the industry." CXMT also showed two 24-gigabit LPDDR5X chips made on the platform and said both were in mass production. Reuters reported the announcement.

Production has begun, but sales have not reached scale. In a September 21 filing with the Shanghai Stock Exchange, CXMT said products made on the platform "have not yet reached volume sales" and would not materially affect its results in the short term. Customers still need to qualify the chips, and improving production yields will take time, the company said. CXMT gave no yield figure, output number or customer name.

What CXMT says the new platform does

DRAM is the short-term working memory that phones, computers, and servers use to run programs. CXMT said the new platform packs the structures that store data closer together, so more memory fits on each chip and more chips come out of each silicon wafer. The company put the spacing of key features in the storage area at 11.95 nanometers. Its written release says the platform's process capabilities are "rivaling the industry's best mass-produced nodes" and describes the 11.95-nanometer figure as "closing the gap with the world's most advanced volume-production memory platforms."

CXMT reached that spacing with quadruple patterning, which repeats several manufacturing steps to print finer circuit patterns. The company said the platform was developed with computer simulations and joint work with Chinese chip-equipment makers on critical production steps. US export controls in place since 2022 restrict China's access to certain advanced chipmaking equipment and related software.

CXMT says the platform is designed to make more powerful memory chips at lower cost and with less power use. The company said the platform produces at least 50% more gross chip dies per wafer than its fourth-generation platform, measured on an 8-gigabit chip. That figure counts every chip cut from a wafer before defective ones are excluded, not the share that passes final testing. The release adds that the physical measurements are "subject to standard metrology margins of error."

The two LPDDR5X chips each hold 24 gigabits, 50% more than CXMT's previous equivalent products, and come in 496-ball and 245-ball packages for smartphones and portable consumer electronics, according to the release. LPDDR5X is the power-saving type of DRAM used mainly in phones.

What changed since the half-year report

CXMT filed its half-year report on August 29. Revenue reached 150.31 billion yuan ($22.5 billion), up 873.64% from a year earlier. Net profit came to 77.61 billion yuan ($11.6 billion) against a loss in the same period of 2025. Gross margin on its main business was 84.84%. In the same report the company wrote that DRAM prices are at a high level and that a "continued sharp rise in prices is not sustainable."

The report described LPDDR6, CXMT's next mobile memory chip, as being with customers for validation. On September 7 the company said in a release on its website that the chip is in mass production and ships in Xiaomi's 18 Fold phone, with a top transfer speed of 12,800 megabits per second.

Reuters described Sunday's announcement as a claimed breakthrough that could help China build a stronger competitor to Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix (SKHY), and Micron (MU). CXMT's prospectus, citing Omdia data, put its share of global DRAM sales at 7.67% in the fourth quarter of 2025, fourth in the world. Korean media reported in August that Apple (AAPL) asked CXMT for a discount and was quoted prices level with or above those of Samsung and SK Hynix, a report neither company has confirmed. Last week Korean media reported that CXMT is setting up a research line for NAND flash, the other main type of memory chip.

The announcement came on a Sunday, so Monday is the first trading session since. CXMT's shares trade on Shanghai's STAR Market under code 688825 and closed Friday at 55.54 yuan ($8.30), more than six times the 8.66 yuan IPO price from July. CXMT's Shanghai-listed shares are not directly available through most US brokerage accounts. Micron closed Friday at $1,015.80 and SK Hynix's US-listed shares at $187.50.

CXMT's exchange filing and its half-year report are quoted in translation from Chinese. Yuan figures are converted at 6.69 yuan to the dollar, the Yahoo Finance rate on September 20, 2026.