Xiaomi 18 Fold's Foldable Future: Powered by China's Top DRAM Maker CXMT
It's not the iPhone 18 Pro that's the hottest phone right now. Usually, when we're at the beginning of September, nothing else is being talked about: the iPhone Pro this, the iPhone Pro that. Now, it's the iPhone Ultra, a.k.a. Apple's first-ever foldable iPhone that steals the show. Overall, 2026 is big for foldables. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 (the one that resembles a passport) is a smash hit for Samsung and everybody loves it. Hence, everyone expects miracles out of the iPhone Ultra and our detailed PhoneArena comparison review against the Z Fold 8 will be epic.
Xiaomi 18 Fold's Foldable Future: Powered by China's Top DRAM Maker CXMT
If we changed the channel for a brief moment, we'd stumble upon another wider-than-taller foldable, though. No, not the Huawei Pura X Max, although this one managed to arrive first. I'm referring to the Xiaomi 18 Fold, which is also due in September and will compete with the aforementioned Z Fold 8 and Apple's first-ever foldable.
Per Reuters, the Xiaomi 18 Fold will get its Dynamic-Random-Access-Memory (DRAM) chips from CXMT. You may've heard about this company before. Although not as big as Korean rivals like Samsung and SK Hynix, CXMT is nevertheless China's top memory chipmaking company.
CXMT will provide its high-end, state-of-the-art LPDDR6 DRAM chips for the Xiaomi 18 Fold. LPDDR6 is the latest DRAM standard, designed to deliver substantially higher data-transfer rates than LPDDR5X while improving power efficiency. It uses a newer signaling architecture that can move more data per cycle, making it better suited to on-device AI and other memory-heavy workloads. LPDDR5X generally tops out around 8.5 Gbps, while LPDDR6 is expected to start around 10.667 Gbps and scale higher.
In other words, LPDDR6 means faster and more efficient phone RAM—and who wouldn't want that?
It's curious to note that CXMT is actually suing the Pentagon. ChangXin Memory Technologies (this is what hides behind the CXMT abbreviation) and the US Department of Defense got in a legal battle over allegations about CXMT aiding the Chinese military company. CXMT says it has no ties to China's military and that its DRAM chips are designed and sold exclusively for civilian and commercial applications. The company argues that the Pentagon's decision was arbitrary, lacked sufficient evidence and caused significant commercial and reputational damage. CXMT is seeking to have the designation overturned and removed from the Pentagon's black list, which can lead to government contracting restrictions.
By the way, CXMT expands rapidly, with its revenue surging 874% in the first half of 2022 compared to the same period last year, driven by strong demand for its DRAM and NAND flash products. The company aims to become a leading global memory chip supplier in the next few years. With the Xiaomi 18 Fold and other high-profile clients, CXMT is certainly on the right track.