Chinese memory maker CXMT jumps 460%+ in first day of trading

Shares of ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc. closed 466% higher in their trading debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange today.

The stock jump follows an initial public offering in which CXMT, China’s largest memory maker, sold about 6.8 billion shares for 8.66 yuan apiece. The IPO fetched a total of 57.92 billion yuan, or $8.6 billion. The company’s market capitalization now exceeds $480 billion.

CXMT is the world’s fourth largest producer of DRAM chips with a reported 7.64% market share as of last year. It makes two memory varieties: DDR and LPDDR. The former technology is commonly found in desktops and servers, while LPDDR is geared towards battery-powered devices such as smartphones. They’re both based on the same basic architecture.

A DRAM chip is made of building blocks called memory cells. Each cell contains a transistor and a tiny battery called a capacitor. The capacitor’s charged state represents 1, while its uncharged state corresponds to 0. The integrated transistor acts as a kind of dam that manages the flow of electricity to the capacitor.

A memory cell connects to the other circuitry in the host chip via two wires called the worldline and the bitline. When an application needs to edit the data in a cell, the worldline activates the cell’s transistor. Once the transistor is active, the bitline can move data in and out of the capacitor to switch it from 1 to 0 or vice versa.

DDR, the first memory variety that CXMT makes, usually takes the form of standalone chips. Those chips can be disconnected from the motherboard of the host system. By contrast, LPDDR modules are usually soldered directly onto the motherboard and use less power than DDR.

CXMP’s IPO prospectus stated that it will use the proceeds from the offering to finance research into new DRAM technologies. The company also plans to expand its manufacturing capacity.

According to Reuters, CXMT is currently in the process of building two new fabs and hopes to add a third one later on. The facilities are expected to more than double the company’s production capacity to over 600,000 wafers per month.

CXMT’s IPO comes a few weeks after larger rival SK hynix Inc. floated on the Nasdaq. The South Korean company raised a record $26.5 billion by selling 177.9 million American depositary shares for $149.

SK hynix is the world’s largest maker of HBM, a speedy DRAM variety used in artificial intelligence chips. HBM has the same basic architecture as DDR and LPDDR with one key difference: its memory cells are stacked atop one another. That arrangement enables HBM chips to more quickly move data to and from the host chip, which speeds up AI models. 

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