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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.
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.
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.