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RAM prices soar, but popular Windows 11 apps are using more RAM due to Electron, Web components (www.windowslatest.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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  • Windows Latest discovered Discord and other Chromium and Electron-based applications with high RAM usage
  • RAM usage spikes from 1GB to 4GB on Discord both in and out of voice chat
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[–] 6 points 11 months ago* (6 children)

The latest semiconductor manufacturer specializing in RAM is ChangXin Memory Technologies

As of 2019, CXMT had over 3,000 employees, and runs a fab with a 65,000 square meters clean room space. Over 70% of its employees are engineers working on various research and development related projects. CXMT uses its 10G1 process technology (aka 19 nm) to make 4 Gb (gigabit) and 8 Gb DDR4 memory chips. It has licensed intellectual property originally created by Qimonda.

So... whatever that costs. Although, I think this wiki is a bit behind the times, as they've got DDR5-8000 memory in flight according to TechInsights.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    It must take so much R&D to achieve anything remotely comparable to what Samsung, Micron (/Crucial... RIP) and SK Hynix can produce.

    Fingers crossed they can either undercut the 3(now 2) big producers, which is doubtful. But hopefully they can help reduce the maximum price that decent memory can inflate to. Because at some point a medium sized customer is gonna get fed up of the Samsung/micron/skHynix bullshit, and custom order the ram they need, and such a smaller producer will provide a much better service for a similar price

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    The miracle of the Chinese Economy (and, really, all the BRICS countries) has been their willingness to educate and industrialize their population.

    Yeah, it takes a ton of R&D, but when you've got 1.4B people you're going to sift out a few who can get the job done. India's Tata is already building their own semiconductor facilities. Brazil's semiconductor sector has been struggling to break into the global market for... decades. Russia's so sanctioned that they've got no choice but to go in-house. South Africa is finally building industrial facilities to match their role in the raw materials supply chain.

    I would suspect this crunch in the global market is going to incentivize a ton of international investment in manufacturing entirely to meet domestic demand. And heaven help us all if there's an actual flashpoint in the Pacific Rim, because that'll shut down the transit that companies like TSM and Broadcomm need to produce at current scales.

    I just wouldn't hold my breath, especially under the current protectionist political environment. You're not going to be buying outside of the US sphere of influence any time soon.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    It wasn't just their willingness to educate their own people but also Apple's willingness to offload all of their production there and basically revolutionize their Tech industry by developing all of their hardware there

    https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2025/06/17/g-s1-72993/how-apple-turbocharged-chinas-development

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  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago

    Apple’s willingness to offload all of their production there and basically revolutionize their Tech industry

    Taiwan's FoxConn building assembly plants in Shenzhen in 2005 does not explain why Huawei is releasing cutting edge phones in 2025.

    Besides, if you want to get historical, Apple cribbed all their technology from Microsoft's trash bin back in the 90s. And Microsoft plundered IBM and the early tech companies of the 1980s before that.

    Chinese firms didn't cheat by licensing the same technology every American firm was outright stealing through reverse engineering.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    Pretty sure all ram manufacturers are Korean? I guess China puts chips on PCBs, maybe? But South Korea has the knowledge . And it had met domestic demand. RAM prices have been acceptable for many many years.
    It's the AI sector that is inflating demand (maybe by circular investment and contracts).
    So, I don't see anyone investing 10 years into the future to make ddr6 ram where their business plan relies on current trends.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago*

    Pretty sure all ram manufacturers are Korean?

    Micron is American, headquartered in Boise, Idaho. Western Digital is based in San Jose, California. Kioxia (formerly a department of Toshiba) is Japanese.

    Only Samsung and SK Hynix are Korean.

    So, I don’t see anyone investing 10 years into the future to make ddr6 ram where their business plan relies on current trends.

    Even if you're not up to DDR6, there's money to be made in lower-tier memory for lower quality devices. Also, when the market is in a pinch, you'll have the ability to scale up with investment dollars faster if you're already in the business.

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