China Delivers Its First Homegrown DDR4 RAM

Chinese memory manufacturer Xi’an UniIC Semiconductors, popularly known as UniIC, is now selling what looks to be China's first domestically made DDR4 RAM. 

The list of Chinese memory makers is so small that you can count them on a single hand. UniIC is still building up its DDR4 repertory, so the company doesn't have a lot to offer at the moment. The memory producer only sells DDR4-2400 and DDR4-2666 memory modules, with the first being the only homegrown part.

An employee from UnilC's official webstore confirmed to a customer that only the DDR4-2400 offerings, which came out at the end of March, use the company's in-house chips. The DDR4-2666 modules, on the other hand, still leverage SK Hynix chips. The company's home-brewed DDR4-2666 modules shouldn't be far behind though.

UnilC's DDR4 modules hold on to the old-school green PCB and don't flaunt any fancy heatsink or RGB lighting. There isn't any surprises under the hood either. According to the buyer's review (via @momomo_us), the UnilC 8GB DDR4-2400 stick comes with CL18/CL17 17-17-39 CL timings at 1.2V. The specifications fall in line with what you'd expect from an affordable DDR4-2400 stick, not the best RAM for your system. 

There's certainly enough voltage headroom to optimize the timings and/or push for a higher memory speed. However, UnilC's memory chips are unknown territory in the DDR4 world, so who knows if they will overclock well.

The street price for the UnilC 8GB DDR4-2400 module is 269 yuan, which is roughly $37.88. It's not the cheapest or the fastest RAM by our standards, but these modules are meant for domestic consumption. It's also a sign that China is advancing towards tech self-sufficiency one step at a time.