ChangXin Memory Technologies raised 57.92 billion yuan, about $8.6 billion, when it listed in Shanghai in July, and the stock closed its first trading session up 466 percent. That single day made CXMT the most valuable company listed on mainland China's exchanges, ahead of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. The company has also outlined plans to move into HBM and LPDDR6, the higher-margin products where Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron currently set the pace.
Its NAND-focused counterpart is following the same route to the public markets. Yangtze Memory Technologies' parent, CCSH, has had a Shanghai STAR Market application accepted and is seeking roughly 33 billion yuan, about $4.9 billion, with proceeds earmarked for production-line upgrades and research and development. YMTC is working to close the gap with Samsung, SK Hynix and Kioxia in NAND, where it has emerged as a major challenger to all three.
Washington could complicate matters for the incumbents rather than the challengers. The Commerce Department is weighing tariffs targeted at semiconductor makers that manufacture outside the United States, sparing companies that build domestically while raising costs for those that do not. Samsung and SK Hynix, which produce most of their DRAM and NAND outside the US, would carry that cost if the policy takes the shape officials have outlined.
Trade figures show what is riding on that decision. South Korean semiconductor exports, a category memory chips dominate, reached a record $46.65 billion in August, up 209 percent from a year earlier and close to half of the country's total goods exports that month. A tariff aimed at offshore chipmaking would land squarely on that trade.
None of that resolves the capacity math underneath it. CXMT and YMTC's parent are together seeking more than $13 billion from public investors at the same time Washington is debating whether to tax the memory that isn't made at home.
Leave a Reply