China's CXMT just moved its 5th-generation DRAM into mass production, claiming at least 50% more chips per wafer despite U.S. export controls. But that headline number counts chips before defects are thrown out. Here's why yield decides whether this is a real threat to Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, and what the market's first reaction could signal.

Micron closed above $1,000 a share. The same day, Microsoft lost roughly $112 billion in market value. That wasn't a tech selloff — Applied Materials gained more than 5% while Oracle fell. Money didn't leave AI. It moved down the stack, out of the companies paying for the buildout and into the ones selling it. Memory has stopped being a product and become a cost line, and with the 30-year Treasury at the highest level of 2026, the squeeze is coming from both directions at once. Wednesday's Fed minutes — where three officials dissented for a rate hike — will decide how much worse it gets.