'When the chips are down' — what a difference 7 years can make!

Seven years ago, I stepped off the train at Hefei South Railway Station in Anhui province to visit a memory chip startup that had just developed its first self-designed high-end product. At the time, the global DRAM industry was a near-monopoly of Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. Few believed a Chinese upstart could ever crash that party.