Tagged DRAM · show all articles
Nvidia never sold you a GPU. Your last laptop or phone purchase still got more expensive because of one — and the mechanism is simpler than it sounds.
Per-stack HBM pricing has risen 150% across three generations. DRAM contract prices moved 60-70% in a single quarter. This briefing works through the mechanics that connect a memory-stacking bottleneck to a consumer laptop price tag.
The US won the protection it asked for. American DRAM makers never came back. What actually happened next is a stranger, more interesting story than "protectionism failed."
While Samsung Foundry chases TSMC's yield, Samsung's separate memory division has been raising DRAM contract prices by double digits per quarter — a distinct business having a distinctly better year.
SK hynix and Samsung are Korean. The only remaining US-headquartered company producing DRAM and HBM at real volume is Micron — a supply- security story as much as a technology one.
By 1986, Japan held roughly 75% of the global DRAM market. By the late 1990s, that lead belonged to Korea, and by the 2000s, Taiwan's foundry model had reshaped the whole industry around it. This briefing covers why, not just when.
Coverage of China's chip constraints focuses on logic — SMIC, EUV, export controls. The country's leading domestic DRAM maker has its own reported gap, and it compounds the one already getting all the attention.