CXMT Begins Mass Production of 11.95 nm G5 DRAM
Chinese firm CXMT has started mass production of its fifth-gen memory, capturing 10% of the global DRAM market, up from 4% a year ago.
CXMT announced on September 20, at the World Manufacturing Convention in Hefei, that its fifth-generation memory platform has entered mass production. According to the company’s statement, the G5 has achieved a half-pitch of 11.95 nanometers in memory arrangement and produces at least 50% more chips per wafer than the previous generation. Two LPDDR5X products of 24 Gb per die have already rolled off the line and are in high-end smartphones from Chinese brands.
The technical detail supporting the announcement is the process. CXMT reached 11.95 nm using quadruple patterning, a technique that exposes and etches the same wafer four times instead of once. It is slower, consumes more steps, and reduces yield per wafer but eliminates the need for ASML's extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, which China has been unable to purchase since 2019. The company chose to pay for process complexity instead of equipment costs.
From 4% to 10% in Four Quarters
CXMT's global DRAM share increased to 10% in the second quarter of 2026, up from 4% a year earlier, according to market surveys cited by multiple analysts. Three years ago, it was less than 1%. The company is now ranked fourth globally, behind Samsung with 39%, SK Hynix with 26%, and Micron with 25%. The combined share of the three fell from 94% to 87% in the same period. CXMT’s revenue grew 716% year-over-year for the quarter, and its IPO on the Shanghai STAR Market in July raised approximately $8.6 billion.
This advancement can be explained not only by industrial policy. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have redirected advanced capacity toward HBM, the stacked memory that powers AI accelerators, with each gigabyte of HBM consuming about three times more wafer area than a gigabyte of conventional DRAM, according to Micron executives. The result has been a shortage of conventional memory. Global DRAM revenue rose 57% in one quarter and 385% year-over-year. Samsung increased the price of the 32 GB DDR5 module from $149 to $239 in September, a 60% hike. SK Hynix declared its capacity for HBM, DRAM, and NAND essentially sold out until 2026, and Micron exited the consumer memory market.
CXMT has stepped into the gap left by the three. It sells conventional DRAM to Chinese PC, smartphone, and server manufacturers, clients that have both commercial and political reasons to reduce dependence on the three incumbents simultaneously.
Korea, U.S., India, and Brazil Face Different Costs
For Samsung and SK Hynix, the risk is not losing the AI customer. It is losing the volume base that finances the factory while margins come from HBM. Conventional memory sustains the utilization of Korean plants in quarters when the accelerator cycle breathes. If CXMT permanently occupies this space, Korea will be exposed to a high-margin, narrow-volume business.
Micron, which has already abandoned consumer markets to focus on AI and enterprise, has turned its loss of market share into a strategic decision. The test will come when CXMT moves up a notch in density and competes for enterprise servers, not just smartphones.
In India, smartphone assembly lines in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh purchase memory in dollars and sell devices in rupees. A cheaper 24 Gb LPDDR5X from China changes the bill of materials for each device assembled there and also alters which supplier Samsung faces in contract negotiations for the next semester.
In Brazil, the effect manifests through import costs. Servers, corporate laptops, and smartphones assembled in Manaus carry memory in their pricing, and the 60% increase in the DDR5 module in a single month is already reflected in replacement quotes and data center budgets announced for 2027. A fourth global source of conventional DRAM is the only short-term variable capable of alleviating this line, regardless of any geopolitical concerns about the chip's origin.
What CXMT has not announced is the missing piece. The G5 is a platform for conventional DRAM, not for HBM, where the current cycle's margins lie. Until the company puts stacked memory into production, Chinese advancements will compress prices in the lower tier of the market while leaving intact the tier where Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron make money. The number to watch in the next quarter is not CXMT's DRAM share, but the first line of HBM it manages to qualify.