The DRAM Architecture War: the 4F² Schism, China's Second Front, and Memory Sovereignty

Weekly Deep Dive · 2026-10-24

One week, five moves, one fault line. MU publicly abandoned 4F² ('fundamental problems', staying on 6F² until 3D DRAM 2027); Samsung's CTO confirmed 4F2 VCT development; CXMT's year-end 4F² server RDIMM deadline stands; Counterpoint revealed YMTC has quietly built a DRAM second front (a year of 7,500 MT/s LPDDR5X at 5k wpm, now ramping 9,600 MT/s on VCT 4F² + Xtacking 4.0); and SK hynix scrapped Solidigm's IPO while Samsung/SKH push 286/240-layer China-NAND upgrades through the BIS valve. Four transmission chains — cell area to cost-curve slope, hybrid bonding as the 3D DRAM bridge, the deepening HBM/conventional fork, and NAND's geography-of-licenses war — with Data Tracker support and seven falsifiable watch points over the next 2-8 weeks. Supply structure decides the cycle's shape; demand duration decides its height.