Still, both SMEE and SiCarrier will need time to ramp up production of their lithography systems, whereas DRAM makers must learn how to use them efficiently, so we would not be as optimistic as the authors and would not expect Chinese tools to produce meaningful DRAM volumes before the early 2030s. Still, the key takeaway here is that China is on track to become a major DRAM maker rather sooner than later.
Citrini Research projects total DRAM demand to reach 157.5 exabytes (EB) per year by 2030, including 75 EB of commodity DRAM for agentic AI CPUs, 25 EB of commodity DRAM for conventional cloud servers, 20 EB of commodity DRAM for client devices, and 37.5 EB of HBM4E as well as HBM5 for AI accelerators (15 EB and 22.5 EB, respectively).
Meanwhile, Citrini expects the whole industry to only produce around 37.5 EB of HBM4E/HBM4 memory (mostly by Micron, Samsung, and SK hynix) as well as 91.3 EB of commodity DRAM (including output in China) in 2030, leaving a deficit of 28.7 EB, or roughly 25%.
That said, the rapid expansion of DRAM production in China could be the industry's best hope to maintain relatively low prices of memory, something that will be particularly beneficial for the market of consumer devices that are sensitive to memory prices, analysts from Citrini believe. Yet, the author argues that most of this new capacity would satisfy China's own demand rather than eliminate the global shortage. Furthermore, even if companies like CXMT can expand their fabs faster, that additional capacity will mostly be consumed by domestic needs, according to Citrini.
It should be noted that to make more memory, DRAM makers need more fab tools, primarily 193nm immersion scanners. Yet, companies like ASML, Canon, and Nikon cannot increase output of immersion DUV systems quickly as these are extremely complex machines containing tens of thousands of parts. While Chinese memory companies certainly pin their hopes on local producers like SMEE and SiCarrier, neither has delivered a single commercial immersion system, and after they do, it will take them years to ramp up production of such tools.
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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom\u2019s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-25/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Anton Shilov Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
Zaranthos I wish headlines matched reality, but sadly they do not. The main qualifications are that “match” depends on execution of expansions and that wafer capacity ≠ bit-equivalent output due to tech node differences. Micron is one of the smaller DRAM companies but it does produce both legacy and modern products. CXMT produces mostly older tech or new tech based on older fab processes. Basically CXMT generally speaking makes less advanced products and I'd argue lower quality products. Micron is doing massive expansions of several fabs and planning or already constructing around 6 more. Some fabs have just come online or are soon to come online so they don't have production data for 2026 at all. A lot of claims come out of China as well like they've achieved market parity when in reality not so much. I take most of these claims with a grain of salt because sometimes it's literally the timing of an article that distorts reality. If I claim my latest video card is just as advanced as Nvidia's latest retail GPU that's 2 years old and mine is fresh off development nobody should be nearly as impressed because anytime now Nvidia will drop a far more advanced product far superior to their older one. It is somewhat surprising so much of the tech industry didn't see the AI boom coming and were woefully unprepared to meet demand. It's also sad GPU supply never got fixed even from the crypto days and now suffers even worse supply than other parts of the industry. I look at Nvidia GPU prices and can't even believe people buy them because they're so massively overpriced. They're also nearly 1.5 years old tech at this point and still costing over $1000 for not even the high end cards. RAM is likely to suffer the same short term fate as supply can't keep up with demand. Reply
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/cxmt-close-to-matching-microns-memory-capacity-in-2026-research-claims-would-put-china-on-track-to-become-worlds-second-largest-dram-producer#main
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.