(By Observer Net, Lv Dong, Editor Zhang Guangkai)

On October 29, Observer Net noticed that the domestic memory manufacturer Changxin Memory officially announced the mass production of LPDDR5X, which comes at a time when memory prices are surging rapidly.

DDR is Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory, mainly used to manufacture memory modules for computers and servers. The current mainstream standards are DDR4 and DDR5; while LPDDR is Low Power DDR, mainly used in mobile electronic products such as smartphones, tablets, and notebooks. The current mainstream product standard is LPDDR5/5X; there is also GDDR, which is Graphics DDR, mainly used in image processing fields.

On its ninth year of establishment, Changxin Memory's mass production of LPDDR5X means that China's domestic memory chips have made further progress. The company stated that through innovative packaging technology and optimized memory design, Changxin Memory's LPDDR5X has significantly improved in capacity, speed, and power consumption. Currently, it provides two single-chip capacities of 12Gb and 16Gb, with the highest speed of 10667Mbps, reaching international mainstream levels. It has improved by 66% compared to the previous generation LPDDR5, while being compatible with LPDDR5. Its power consumption is reduced by 30% compared to LPDDR5.

Image source: Changxin Memory official website

At present, global storage chip prices are rapidly rising, even "rising faster than gold." According to data from TrendForce, in the third quarter of 2025, DRAM prices increased by 171.8% compared to the same period last year. If we take the international spot price of gold on October 29 as $3956, it has only risen by less than 110% compared to the low point of $1890 last year.

The reason for this is that the global storage chip market is facing a complex situation. With the surge in demand for high-performance storage due to AI, Samsung and other storage chip manufacturers have shifted their production capacity to advanced memory products such as High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), leading to tight supply of common storage used in smartphones, computers, and servers, and triggering some customers' panic buying, continuously pushing up prices.

At the same time, DDR4 and LPDDR4X memories used in personal computers and servers have entered the end of their product life cycles, causing active stockpiling of the previous generation products. In addition, it is currently the peak season for the storage industry, leading to an oversupply in the spot market.

From the spot market data, during the period from October 13 to 18, the average prices of DDR5 16G and DDR4 16G increased by 20.59% and 11.11%, respectively, compared to the previous week, and by as much as 58.73% and 43% compared to last month. At the same time, there were reports in the market that foreign storage manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will adjust the prices to customers for traditional memory in the fourth quarter of this year, with storage product prices including DRAM and NAND increasing by up to 30%.

The sharp rise in upstream memory prices quickly transmitted to downstream terminal products. Recently launched multiple phone models have seen price increases. For example, the starting price of OnePlus Ace6 was raised by 300 yuan; the pricing of vivo X300 series increased by 100 to 300 yuan; the OPPO Find X9 series had a price increase of 200 to 300 yuan; the Realme GT8 series increased by 300 to 500 yuan; the iQOO 15 series started at 3999 yuan and rose to 4199 yuan, an increase of about 5%, while the top configuration version increased by 300 yuan, a rise of about 6%.

In Hangzhou, Zhejiang, the price of memory sticks doubled within a month. On social media, many netizens posted their stockpiled memory sticks. A merchant said that the original memory stick priced at over 200 yuan now costs more than 400 yuan, and those originally priced at over 1000 yuan have now gone up to nearly 2000 yuan. Even dealers in Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei were caught off guard: "In the past, the cheapest 32G memory could be done for under 300 yuan, but now 500 yuan is uncertain," "DDR4 and DDR5, basically one price per day, the market changes too fast."

Some people even think that the popularity of AI shows no signs of waning, and at least for the next five years, the growth of storage demand driven by AI, cloud computing, and cloud services will not stop. Therefore, the pressure on the consumer electronics industry will continue to increase, and long-term, capacity-based price hikes are unavoidable. This year's Double 11 may be the last chance to replace phones at a lower cost.

Samsung memory chips

This phenomenon-level market trend makes the news of Changxin Memory's LPDDR5X mass production timely. The company stated that the LPDDR5X product lineup includes various forms such as chips, chips, and modules. Among them, the chips include two capacity points of 12Gb and 16Gb. So far, Changxin Memory's LPDDR5X products with speeds of 8533Mbps and 9600Mbps have been mass-produced since May this year, and the 10677Mbps speed product has already started customer sampling. Especially the "10677Mbps" indicator, which is comparable to the same-specification product produced by SK Hynix last October.

It cannot be denied that, in terms of the mass production time of advanced storage technologies and global market share, domestic storage manufacturers still have a gap compared to South Korean and American manufacturers. However, we can indeed see the continuous efforts of Changxin Memory and Yangtze Memory to catch up.

In 2019, just three years after its establishment, Changxin Memory mass-produced DDR4, becoming the fourth company in the world to master DDR4 core technology. In late 2023, the company launched LPDDR5, achieving a breakthrough in the domestic market. In 2025, Changxin Memory's DDR5 was put into the market and completed IPO tutoring. According to TrendForce, Changxin Memory's global memory market share increased from less than 2% at the beginning to 10% by the end of 2024, and it is expected to reach 12% by the end of 2025.

Now, the mass production of domestic LPDDR5X in the price hike trend can be considered as "quenching thirst." Market analysis pointed out that the current explosive growth of edge-side AI applications has made memory bandwidth a key bottleneck restricting device performance. Test data show that devices equipped with 10.7Gbps (i.e., the aforementioned 10667Mbps) memory speed have significantly improved response speed, voice translation, and other task efficiency when running large language models like Llama 2. For flagship smartphones, this speed can easily support 8K video continuous shooting, high frame rate gaming, and other frequent scenarios. Domestic storage is expected to solve the pain point of completely relying on South Korean memory to achieve optimal performance in domestic terminals.

Last week, at the IEEE 2025 ASICON conference, Vice President Li Hongwen of Changxin Memory also revealed that the company is developing an LPDDR5X with a thickness of only 0.58mm. If this product successfully enters mass production, it will be the thinnest LPDDR5X product in the industry.

This round of storage price surge may continue for some time. The huge profits of established giants like Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are already expected. As for how much cake the domestic memory can get, it may depend on Changxin Memory's expansion progress.

This article is an exclusive article from Observer Net. Without permission, it cannot be reprinted.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7566565329594335750/

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