Tagged HBM · show all articles
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.
Nvidia designs the GPU. SK hynix supplies the memory stacked directly on top of it, at a market share high enough that a single Korean company's production schedule now sets a real ceiling on AI accelerator supply.
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.
Applied Materials builds layers up. Lam Research carves them back down — the etch step that turns a deposited film into an actual working circuit pattern, and its own genuinely hard engineering problem.