this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
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[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 65 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Although CXMT is accused of stealing technology from Samsung to build its first DDR5 chips, the limited global memory supply could lead desperate companies to overlook this and buy memory chips from the company.

Samsung, Apple, et al have stolen from each other at every turn from everyone and with no consequence. Who gaf that this Chinese company did it, too?

After all, most end users wouldn’t care where the memory chips in their laptops and pre-built PCs come from, as long as they perform well and are ~~competitively~~ fairly priced

Fixed it.

[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 21 points 4 days ago (2 children)

As long as we don't get a ram version of the whole capacitor fiasco from the gen 1 xbox days

[–] fonix232@fedia.io 19 points 4 days ago

Fortunately bad quality DRAM can be found out much quicker than bad quality capacitors.

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago

If it does happen I hope consumers catch on fast. corpos can get fucked though

[–] mechoman444@lemmy.world 42 points 4 days ago (2 children)

There is no chip shortage. There are plenty of chips they're just not being sold to consumers.

This is an important distinction.

[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 26 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Shortage means supply doesnt meet demands, which is true. AI giants are gobbling up the available supply leaving us lower paying customers without any

[–] mechoman444@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Once again there is no shortage. My local microcenter center has hundreds of bundles in stock. They're just super expensive because posts like this keep saying there's a shortage.

There is no ram shortage. There was never a ram shortage.

One company decided to not sell consumer ram anymore and the collective world lost their minds.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago

One company decided to not sell consumer ram anymore

One of the only 3 companies making it. And a second has mentioned following suit.

[–] Senal@programming.dev 7 points 3 days ago

That's a very narrow slice of a supply chain to be using it as a basis for conclusions like that.

I don't disagree that the "shortage" is artificial, i'm just saying that your local store having stock and raising prices isn't a good basis for determining overall supply chain health.

Like looking out your window and seeing rain, so obviously it must be raining everywhere.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

When demand is higher than supply, that's a shortage

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

Is demand actually higher than supply? This is all from future orders to be plugged into data centers that don't exist, that needs power that doesn't exist to earn a profit from a product that doesn't have profits that exist.

If I take out a 20B loan to buy all Pokemon cards on the market with an agreement to buy 95% of all future cards made for the next few years and use the Pokémon cards as an asset to secure the loan did I single handedly drive up demand for the foreseeable future even if there is no proof I will make good on the deal?

[–] mechoman444@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Yes. But the supply exists. I'm telling you, you can get ram readily. No one is sold out of it.

eBay is bursting with ram. Microcenter is fully stocked. Computers are selling steady.

There is no ram shortage! Its just expensive because people are saying there's a shortage!

[–] Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 26 points 4 days ago (3 children)

The paranoid in me wonders though... can DRAM be backdoored? I'd bet 'yes', and this would be a perfect opening to introduce a huge amount of compromised hardware to the world market...

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 69 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I'm sure it can, like any component. But we're all running computers full of chips from American companies, and the USA isn't any more trustworthy. It's not a huge change.

[–] blady_blah@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Anything can be backdoor... In, but I'm really struggling to see how you could do something useful with a dram chip. In theory, if it were smart enough, it could analyze the data that's being stored and manipulated in some way, but there's no way a dram module would have the processing power and brains to do anything useful with this.

And memory manipulation would be about the most it could accomplish because the dram modules themselves don't have signal lines that can control anything. They basically have data alliance address lines, return lines, power ground and control circuitry. They can't affect the rest of the motherboard/ computer other than subverting data... And computers tend to be pretty good at catching memory that doesn't store data properly.

If you tried hard enough, you could figure out a scenario where this could work, but I don't think this is something we really need to worry about.

[–] fonix232@fedia.io 23 points 4 days ago

Not really. DRAM at its core is not even useful without a controller that actually provides managed access to it. Any backdoor would need to be either in the controller or a layer above for it to be functional. And controllers aren't the issue, DRAM chips are.

[–] LorIps@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

Comrade Xi, save my people from capitalist oppression!

[–] BlackLaZoR@fedia.io 20 points 4 days ago

China: I'm sorry but your sanctions don't allow.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The way I see it, if you want to play video games you will have to be happy with cloud gaming slop or buy some obscure GPUs, SSDs and RAM from Chinese companies you have never heard of. The days of Nvidia and AMD for end consumer products are soon over. They don‘t care about us. I hate this development but it is what it is.

If the Americans didn't cockblock everyone they wouldn't be companies you've never heard of.

Atleast the Chinese company wants people to want its products where apparently western companies don't give a fuck about users only other companies.

[–] kurikai@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

just play older games. they are usually better anyway

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You’re not really thinking this through, are you? Your old hardware will deteriorate eventually. And believe me keeping an Oldtimer up running becomes increasingly expensive with fewer and fewer spare parts.

[–] kurikai@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

will last longer than that cloud shit

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 days ago

This is important for all of us. But, it will definitely boost Chinese chip manufacturing if prices are awesome even if they need to improve yields.