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The Stay Puft Semiconductor Man; Or, ‘What did you DO, Elon?’
Great Ones,
When there’s something strange, in the tech sector … who you gonna call?
Mr. Great Stuff! Thank god you’re here! Have you seen semiconductors!
Yeah, that’s some spooky action. Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) is down 9% this week. Sandisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) is off 10%. Seagate Technology (NASDAQ: STX) ghosted investors nearly 12%. Even the PHLX Semiconductor Index (SOX) screamed 5% lower.
Did someone shut off the grid? Was it Walter Peck again?
Why yes. Yes it was Walter Peck … I mean, Elon Musk. He also has no…
Mr. Great Stuff! Behave!
Well. It’s true!
Check this out: the initial breach of the semiconductor containment field occurred after China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) announced a major architectural breakthrough with a new "4F²" vertical DRAM cell, promising to introduce a commercial DDR5 RDIMM server module by the end of 2026.
Uh, Mr. Great Stuff, explain it to me like I'm a four-year-old. It's been a really long time since I did any reading.
Well, let’s say this Twinkie represents a normal amount of memory – let’s say 1Gb – on a standard memory chip. Based on CXMT’s announcement, they can put about 30% to 50% more Twinkies on a chip than anyone else right now.
That’s a lot of Twinkies.
Yeah, but there’s no need to panic and go all “Woah! Somebody’s Coming,” Peter.
Let’s look at what CXMT actually announced before we break out the blasters and cross the streams.
According to the South China Morning Post, CXMT reported “key progress” on the new memory chip. It also said it planned to roll out a new product based on the design by the end of 2026.
No actual product.
No word on a manufacturing facility.
No word on production capacity.
No nothing.
Just good news on a shiny new idea. A “proof of concept,” if you will, with hopes that they can start thinking about mass production sometime next year.
Yes … next year. You don’t just build or retrofit an existing manufacturing supply chain full of extremely sensitive, custom built, semiconductor lithograph machines in two months.
You just don’t.
Seems like a big nothingburger.
When does Walter Peck… er, Elon Musk come in?
Right now…
Musk’s State-Sponsored Marshmallow Man
Semiconductors slipped on the news, this is true. Anytime a competing company announces a potential breakthrough that could massively impact revenue, the semiconductor sector moves
The CXMT news was no different. Chip stocks dipped slightly, with a touch of profit taking pushing losses down into the 4% range – well within most of these stock’s average daily trading range. Again, no biggie.
At roughly 1:00 P.M. the day of CXMT’s announcement, Elon Musk drops the following Tweet:
When China figures out how to manufacture a product, their ability to scale is often greater than the rest of the world combined. We saw this with lithium batteries and solar, for example. SpaceX is a rare counter-example... BUT China now does a majority of non-SpaceX mass to orbit... LP5 and LP6 are designed to a common standard that China seems to be solving fast.
Newer HBM architectures and things like an SRAM layer below logic and 3D stacking RAM on top of logic while finding a way to keep the logic cooled will be harder to solve.
Now, if you’re an educated semiconductor engineer, you know that Musk is pointing out that the real long-term hurdle is 3D stacking RAM and that much more important development is considerably harder, even if it is the next iteration of CXMT’s new technology.
But we’re not engineers. We’re investors.
To investors, Elon Musk just confirmed our worst fears:
First by implying that China has the manufacturing capacity and know-how to hit the ground running in just two months.
Second, by reminding investors that CXMT has Chinese-state backing financially.
All that “clever” engineering speak about how this “isn’t really a big deal, the next one is bigger” just went right over investors heads.
All investors saw was a Chinese company, with Chinese money and Chinese manufacturing that would threaten the core business model of their favorite semiconductor investments.
Wall Street: What did you DO, Elon?
Elon Musk: I couldn’t help it. It just popped in there.
Wall Street: What? What “just popped in there”?
Elon Musk: I… I tried to make the Chinese look stupid. Something I loved from my childhood.
Wall Street: Nice thinking, Elon.
By confirming that China "seems to be solving [standard RAM] fast" and highlighting the country’s ability to scale the manufacturing process quickly, Musk gave CXMT credibility and essentially “shut off the grid” for many semiconductor investors.
I can’t believe Wall Street is still seriously considering listening to Elon. We should get him outta here. We can get him a nice fruit basket.
How We Do Things Downtown
Great Ones, it’s time to show this semiconductor market and Elon Musk how we do things downtown. Grab your stick!
Holding!
Heat ‘em up!
Smoking!
When the market makes investing unnecessarily hard, we need to be ready. And when the market turns to idiocy, there is no one better than your favorite idiot – Mr. Great Stuff – to cut through the BS and give you an actionable plan.
CXMT’s threat is real, but only for a few of the lower-tier memory manufacturers right now.
The big names like Micron and Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), they’ll be just fine.
The current lead-time for China to develop the 3D-stacked memory chips – the ones everyone is worried about – is roughly five-years, giving the geniuses at Micron and the rest plenty of time to solidify their market share.
In the meantime, CXMT still needs to prove it can mass produce a working, rigorously tested product.
Data centers aren’t just going to drop functioning high-end memory for mass produced crap. They need proof, and that takes time … no matter how much cheaper the chips are.
Ready!
Let’s show Elon Peck how we do things downtown!
Throw it!
Micron Technology (MU)
Category: High-Bandwidth AI Memory (HBM)
CXMT Threat: Low (Near-Term)
Action: BUY THE DIP
Strategy: Scale in on 4–5% pullbacks.
The pullback to $950, a 25% correction from June’s all-time high, is a gift for investors looking to add MU. The company is heavily shielded from CXMT’s new product line by non-negotiable demand for HBM3e and enterprise AI storage. These are the exact technologies limited by U.S. trade rules, creating a massive physical hurdle for Chinese foundries.
Intel (INTC)
Category: Foundry / AI Silicon
CXMT Threat: Low (Federally Backed)
Action: HOLD / BUY
Strategy: Insulated by the historic $8.9 billion direct equity investment under CEO Lip-Bu Tan in August 2025. This 9.9% federal stake lessened traditional CapEx risks.
Intel will always be Intel. The stock is a semiconductor stalwart, and now it has government backing … just like CXMT. Well, not just like. But the U.S. government does hold a direct 9.9% equity stake ($8.9 billion injection). Intel used that cash to backstop its foundry buildout and lower its CapEx risks.
Seagate Technology (STX)
Asset Category: High-Capacity HAMR Storage
CXMT Threat: Low (Mechanical HDD)
Action: HOLD / BUY THE DIP
Strategy: Enterprise hard-disk drives are completely disconnected from solid-state DRAM headlines.
Seagate has come on hot for its exposure to solid-state hard drives (SSDs). But the company’s high-capacity enterprise hard drives (HDDs) are the real revenue stream, providing cold storage for AI data centers at a fraction of the cost. STX is diving in sympathy with its fellow “memory” makers, creating a potential discount for interested buyers.
SanDisk (SNDK)
Asset Category: Consumer NAND Flash
CXMT: HIGH (Direct Dumping)
Action: AVOID / TRIM EXPOSURE
Strategy: Directly vulnerable to Chinese state-subsidized foundries flooding consumer flash storage.
SanDisk is about to get slimed. There’s no way around it. The company built its legacy on mass-produced, inexpensive NAND flash and memory cards – which is exactly the market where CXMT will dump its state-backed consumer flash chips at or below cost to capture market share. If you’re holding SNDK, take profits or cut your losses … before they get worse.
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Until next time, stay Great!
Joseph Hargett
Editor, Greater Stuff
Founder, Greater Stuff Publishing LLC
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