Lenovo laptops begin featuring Chinese YMTC memory chips

The world-renowned company Lenovo has for the first time started using SSD drives from China's Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) in its mass-market laptops. According to Notebookcheck, these components have been identified in new configurations of the ThinkBook 14 Gen 9 model. This marks the first official case of Chinese memory chips appearing in mass-market devices from a major brand like Lenovo. This is reported by Ixbt.com report s.

The tested ThinkBook 14 Gen 9 IPL version was found to be equipped with a 512 GB SSD in M.2 2242 format with a PCIe 4.0 NVMe interface. Despite the modern connection standard, the performance of this drive falls significantly behind products from brands such as Samsung or Western Digital, which are typically used in laptops of this category.

Speed and stability issues

Test results showed that the YMTC drive's sequential read speed was recorded at around 3950 MB per second, and write speed at 2514 MB. These figures are considered low for the PCIe 4.0 standard. Additionally, the speed of random 4K operations also turned out to be below average, which may affect the overall responsiveness of the system.

Most importantly, under prolonged heavy load, this SSD heats up and enters a throttling state, meaning it artificially reduces its speed to lower the temperature. This may cause inconvenience for users working with large volumes of data.

Reasons behind market changes

The appearance of Chinese memory chips in Lenovo laptops is linked to global changes in the world market. Currently, due to the sharply rising demand for chips for artificial intelligence (AI) systems, a shortage and price increase are being observed in the NAND memory market. As a result, major manufacturers are turning to Chinese brands as an alternative to more expensive suppliers like Samsung, Kioxia, and Western Digital.

It is worth noting that this trend in the memory chip market is not limited to Lenovo alone. Earlier, reports emerged that Apple was also seeking permission from the US government to purchase memory from China's CXMT manufacturer. This indicates that Chinese technologies will further solidify their position in the global electronics market in the future.

Considering that Lenovo products are also very popular in the Uzbekistan market, it is highly likely that we will soon encounter these new components in laptops in our stores as well. However, buyers are advised to pay attention not only to the processor and RAM but also to the brand of the installed SSD when choosing a device.