RAM

Without helium there are no chips or RAM. And the largest producers are in the eye of the Iran war

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Think of the world as if it were a puppet. It is supported by threads that move, but when one of those threads breaks, the whole wobbles. If several strings break at once, the puppet falls apart. In the technological world, 2026 has started on the wrong foot. The main RAM memory companies They have turned to producing memory for AI, leaving the consumer market. This has caused an unprecedented increase of prices that affects consumers, but also companies. Right now, it’s impossible to guess when it will return to normal because each party involved thinks one thing. And, for a few days now, we have another of those threads that I talked about at the beginning: the iran war. The consequence We are already seeing it immediately: the Strait of Hormuz boilingthe barrel of crude oilreaching stratospheric prices and a gasoline –dieselabove all- through the clouds. But since everything that goes wrong can get worse, now there is another crisis knocking at the door: that of helium. And it is the perfect union between RAM crisis and the war in Iran because without helium… well, without helium there are many things that do not work. Neither does artificial intelligence. RAM crisis + Iran war = no helium For many, helium is that gas that gives us such a funny voice and allows us to inflate balloons that float. For the semiconductor industry, helium is a critical and irreplaceable element in the manufacturing process. Being a noble gas, it does not chemically interfere with the materials of the silicon crystal growth process. inside the huge machines that companies use to create the wafers that are later used to make chips. They prevent materials from reacting with oxygen or other contaminants, so the results are purer. They are like a shield, but helium is also essential to dissipate the heat of the extreme lithography machinesto eliminate waste after each manufacturing cycle and even to identify any leaks in one of these machines. Its particles are among the smallest that exist and are what reveal even the smallest leaks in manufacturing chambers that must be under vacuum. Come on, it is not an element that can be easily replaced. There are two companies that right now have such a deep dependency that any variation in supply would be fatal. What companies? Exactly: Samsung and SK Hynix, the same ones that have dedicated themselves to AI and the same ones that do not plan to lift a finger to alleviate the crisis of RAM memory prices (and therefore of SSDs and any device that has a NAND chip). Both are involved in the manufacturing process of the sophisticated HBM4 memoryand both need helium. The problem is that helium is a byproduct in natural gas production, and some of the world’s largest refineries are in the Middle East. With the war in Iran, it is clear that the civilian targets are data centers and energy producers. If these infrastructures are attacked, the rest of the West is paralyzed, and they have begun to launch kamikaze drones against them. There is the oil company Ras Tanurabut also that of Ras Laffan, from QatarEnergy. It is one of the whales in the production of natural gas and, therefore, in the production of helium. And if the refineries close and the ships do not arrive, the smelters’ reserves begin to run out. There are already voices that they point to problems in the medium term if the situation persists. SK Hynix claims that they have a “diversified supply chain and sufficient helium inventory”something similar to what has commented another of the large chip manufacturers: TSMC. The problem is that these guarantees are short-term. If the situation continues with a prolonged closure of Hormuz, more than 25% of the world’s helium supply will be affected. This will cause the companies that ‘use’ gas the most to begin to see that their reserves are depleted at a faster rate than they are replenished. the market, always so unstablehas already reacted and actions Both Samsung and SK Hynix have fallen in recent hours due to supply concerns. Because we are no longer talking about a price of RAM and runaway gasolinewe are talking about helium being necessary for the manufacturing of any advanced chip, but also in quantum computing or for the numerous space launches. And as Hormuz continues, there will be many entities fighting for an essential, irreplaceable and very valuable good. Faced with SK Hynix’s moderate optimism, more pessimistic voices are already seeing echoes of the component crisis of 2020. Images | VALGO, ASML In Xataka | ‘Focus: The ASML Way’: the book that reveals the secrets of the most powerful European company in the chip industry

8 GB of RAM has gone from $40 to $130 in five months. It is explained in four words: “It is what it is”

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At this point in the film, it no longer escapes us that we are in the midst of a new component crisis. What started with RAM crisis ended up mutating into SSD crisis and any device that has memory or a memory controller. We are in an “unprecedented” situation, said by the companies themselves that manufacture that memory, and although it all started with SSDs and more expensive RAM ‘chips’, now things have escalated. How much? Let’s go with some examples. a rocket. Maybe in Europe they are not the best known, but Framework It is a company that is doing things well. It has a desktop PC, but also something much more interesting: modular laptops. It is not so common to be able to choose all the components of a laptop, and the Framework components do give us that opportunity. The fact is that they are the perfect example to see how the market is. In September they stopped selling standalone RAM modules. They were not the only ones who began to sell computers without memory or with less physical SSD than advertised, but now the next ‘stick’ has arrived: if before 8 GB of RAM cost 40 dollars, now it is 130 dollars. And if you wanted 96 GB of RAM, before it “only” cost you $480… and now you have to shell out $1,340. It’s the market, friend. It is estimated that prices are increasing between 6% and 16% on the company’s equipment. The Framework Desktop 32GB LPDDR5X memory is up $110 since it launched. And the 128 GB one has increased by about $600. The equipment that was already built in the warehouse has not been affected by this, but as the stock runs out, they will inevitably follow the same path. “The price is what it is, unfortunately,” says the CEO of Framework In ArsTechnica we can read that Nirav Patel, CEO of the company, points out that they are trying to solve the problems, but in the end… he is not on his own and the best thing he can do is be transparent. In an interview with BIpoints out that they are looking under the rocks and that if an intermediary tells them “we have found 5,000 RAM modules in a warehouse”, they would buy them without thinking. The problem is accessing new RAM modules… because there aren’t any. Increases. As we say, it is no longer just the RAM that we can see in stores like Amazon, but the components of a computer, a cell phone, a television, a cara modem or… one Raspberry Pi. Since this crisis began, we have talked a lot about how manufacturers were saying that things were tough and it was going to take a while for the market to recover. But the case of Framework helps ground things, and so does Raspberry. Because if Framework uses DDR5 memory, which is the most advanced, Raspberry’s is not the latest generation. However, the company has also had to raise prices. Yes three months ago increased a little, now they have skyrocketed. Its memories are LPDDR4 and the company has published a table that point Because the more RAM your board has, the more the price goes up. Raspberry PI 4 and Raspberry Pi 5 Price increase 1 GB Nothing 2GB 10 dollars 4GB 15 dollars 8GB 30 dollars 16 GB 30 dollars Out of the race. In the end, it all depends on the price of the device. In a 4,000 euro computer that you need for professional work, you have no choice but to pay about 600 more to expand the RAM. But on cheaper equipment, the feeling is that it has a much greater impact. This is the case of the Raspberry. In a 120 euro device like the Raspberry Pi 5 of 16 GB, an increase of 60 euros is stupid. And as the situation lasts a long time, that will be the big problem for many software manufacturers. Apple just present new laptops and the iPhone 17e and, in Spain at least, the price has remained the same. This has not happened in other countries such as the United States, seeing strong increases in some models. Apple, Lenovo, Dell… are companies that have already said that things are bad and the users will have to bear the cost. But there are also voices that point out that not all companies can allow their users to be the ones who ‘swallow’ with the situation. From SMICChina’s large foundry, has already pointed out that there will be hardware companies that will be left out of the game. We are already seeing it: the cheap mobile is suffering the consequences and the Chinese Meizu, which wanted to eagerly return to the Western market, is already backing down. 2027 2028. Valve and its Steam Machine is another example: the console should come out this spring, but not only is there no price, but it is not known when it will arrive. And when will the end of this catastrophic situation be? It’s the million dollar question. Patel comments that the relief will begin in early 2028, a date similar to what other parts of the industry are managing. However, Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, has already warned that the AI ​​race He has seven or eight years leftand just now they have begun to commission TSMC to begin mass manufacturing of Vera Rubin, their next-generation acceleration platform. It is something that needs memory and only Samsung and SK Hynix (two of the big three RAM companies) are able to supply it right now. In the end, it is about going day by day in this new crisis, but everything indicates that if we need something, it is better to buy it as soon as possible because ifamsung, Micron and SK Hynix they are not doing consumption memoryprices will rise more and more over the next few months. Images | Raspberry, Framework In Xataka | SK is one … Read more

In the midst of the RAM and SSD crisis, there are those who are launching laptops and mobile phones with more capacity at the same price: Apple

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Apple has set out to eclipse the Mobile World Congress. He does not attend the Barcelona fair, but he has presented products. For now, the iPhone 17ethe new MacBook Pro with the M5 Pro and M5 Max processorsthe new MacBook Air M5 and the renewal of your monitor Studio Display. And what has caught my attention the most is the “generosity” of an Apple that has not accustomed us to it. Because, with the one that is falling with the RAM crisis and of SSD priceApple is offering more without increasing the price. And it is something that has several readings… and some asterisks. The new devices. There isn’t much new in anything the company has presented so far. It is assumed that there is still a ‘cheap’ MacBook throughout this Wednesday, March 4, but what they have already presented is, basically, the same as last year, but with new processors. The iPhone 17e is a mobile phone with an outdated design, but it includes a slightly cut version of the processor of the iPhone 17 Pro. The MacBook Pros were already beasts in many ways and now they can be equipped with the M5 Pro and M5 Max that reach absurd figures for GPU capacity and memory bandwidth in the most powerful versions. And the MacBook Air was already a very interesting device for mobility, but now also somewhat more powerful. As I say, not much new on the front, until we look at the storage. With the one that is falling… At this point, no one is aware that we are experiencing an unprecedented component crisis. It’s not like 2020, when a bunch of factors caused a global chip crisis. Now there is only one “culprit”: artificial intelligence. There is three main companies that manufacture memory (Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung), and the three have focused almost the entire his production to memories for AI. This is causing not only us to have to pay more to be able to buy RAM or an SSD for our PC, but also the manufacturers themselves are changing their device launch plans –the steam machine-, there is someone who is selling laptops without RAM or without SSDwho looks to Chinese manufacturers to see if they can find a solution or, directly, those who can withdraw from the market. And, in the middle of that hurricane, Apple (which It is not characterized by its popular prices), launches devices. And the surprise came. Generosity. I’m not going to explain much, I’m just going to give some information: The iPhone 17e starts with 256 GB of storage and costs 709 euros. He iPhone 16e It started at 128 GB and cost 709 euros. The MacBook Air M5 costs 1,199 euros with 512 GB of SSD. He MacBook Air M4 It cost the same at launch, 1,199 euros (in October last year they lowered it by 100 euros to 1,099 euros), but with 256 GB. On these devices, Apple has doubled the storage while maintaining the price. And not only that: the Studio Display XDR was sold with a basic tilt adjustment stand, but you could purchase the articulated arm that allowed you to adjust both angle and height. The price of support? 999 euros, which became a meme. Now, the new Studio Display XDR It comes with that ‘Pro’ support included. Of course, the base MacBook Pro M5 costs 100 euros more with a 1 TB SSD instead of 512 GB. Generosity? What is happening here, is the first thing I thought when I started analyzing the price. There are several options that can be compatible… and even all at the same time. No company is there to give away, so it is simply possible that they have a huge stock of 512 GB SSDs that they now mount as a base in their computers. This would make sense if we take into account the very high price of expanding the memory on an Apple device. The most basic option would be the most chosen, so those with 128 GB on mobile phones and 256/512 on MacBooks would be the best sellers and, therefore, have a surplus of the expanded options that fewer people would opt for. Another reading may be that, due to the high price of the devices, Apple decides to absorb part of the cost of RAM because it’s still worth itmaking money per device sold and expanding the Mac user base at a time when Windows laptops can have a very difficult time. What Apple saves are the chargers in its new equipment. The MacBook Pro no longer included a charger, but the MacBook Air did. Now not even that. The turn. The other option is that… it will be our turn. The prices that I have detailed are in euros and for Spain if we take into account the launch price, without subsequent offers or reductions. In the United States, things are very different. They have also doubled the storage, but the MacBook Air in its 13 and 15-inch versions now They are 100 dollars more expensive than the previous generation. It is always complicated because direct conversions cannot be made from the US price to the European price (in fact, the M5 MacBook Air costs $1,099 and $1,299 compared to our 1,199 euros and 1,499 euros), but we may simply have to face that price increase in 2027 models. Because, unfortunately, the RAM crisis is going to last a long time. Intel He thinks he has the rest of the decade ahead of him, NVIDIA does not have good forecasts either and Samsung has just said that, if that, it will begin to ease in 2027. Images | Apple, Samsung In Xataka | Apple has been the industry’s first customer for decades. AI is relegating it to the background

All the money in the world won’t satisfy AI’s RAM hunger

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There is no RAM for so much AI. At this point in the film, no one can ignore that we are fully immersed in a new component crisis. Unlike the perfect storm that shook the technology industry in 2020, the new crisis is due to something very specific: the voracity of data centers and the artificial intelligence. In recent weeks we have seen negativity everywhere, but now one of the main people responsible for the lack of RAM comes to say that things are not going to stay the same. They are going to get worse. 30% of the goal. Chey Tae-won is not just anyone. This is the CEO of SK groupone of the largest conglomerates in the world and a South Korean giant that controls everything from the energy industry to chemicals and telephony. In addition, it has SK Hynix, one of the largest manufacturers of memories from around the world. If there is an authorized voice in this crisisof course it is yours. And what did he say? Well, there’s still a RAM storm left for a while. In a recent interview, stated that memory supply will be more than 30% below AI demand for this year. That is, by turning all their production to high-performance memory for AI, completely abandoning the consumer sector, they will be far from be able to satisfy what companies like NVIDIA they are claiming. structural problem. As we say, we have been talking about the state of the industry for weeks, but now we understand the extent to which the consumer sector has taken a backseat to memory manufacturers. That “we have given everything and we are going to fall within 30% of the goal” is tremendously revealing and explains the reason why everything with a memory chip is rising in price. Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung are the three companies that lead production by memory. They make both consumer memory (that of the mobile phone, the PC, the routerTV or car) as a professional (high-bandwidth HBMs), but their production is not unlimited: if they want to increase performance in one type of memory, they must lower that of the other. And that’s what’s happening: the AI ​​business is memory hungry, and for every unit of high-bandwidth memory produced, several units of standard memory must be sacrificed for other devices. This creates a bottleneck and an “unprecedented” shortage, according to Micron’s vice president, as the AI ​​industry is consuming all memory production capacity, creating a tremendous shortage in the conventional branch. All sold. As consumers, buy an SSD, a RAM module and a Large capacity HDD is a luxury right now, but to those who control chip production, it’s going well for them because they are selling all production before starting to “print” chips. Chey Tae-won himself has commented that the profit margins on his HBM4 chips are stratospheric, around 60%. Micron has already commented that all of its HBM memory production capacity for 2026 is already sold, and These are statements similar to those of Western Digital a few days ago. This implies that they have already sold components that do not exist for graphics cards that do not exist and that will power data centers that do not yet exist. abandoning ship. Samsung, SK and Micron are expanding their production lines and opening factories, but getting clean rooms It’s a slow process for them to start making chips, and Micron’s new plants, for example, aren’t expected to start making RAM until 2028. And when they do, it’ll likely be memory for data centers, not consumer price relief. In the end, there are only a few suppliers for many manufacturers, and that has another consequence: there will be brands that they have to get out of the car. The CEO of the SK group has commented that “there will probably be PC and smartphone manufacturers that will end up abandoning their businesses”, but he has not been the only one. A few days ago, the boss of Phison, a company that makes memory controllers, pointed in the same line. And it is easy to understand: if a manufacturer with low volume costs much more for memory, it has two options: sell a PC/mobile with less RAM or sell that same product much more expensive. Neither is a good idea. The price of 32 GB of DDR5 RAM from Crucial. Micron’s Crucial no longer exists Not very hopeful forecasts. The big question is when this solution will end. From SMIC, the large Chinese foundry, it is estimated that storm remains for a while because everyone wants to build their infrastructure for the next decade over the next two years. There are analysts who estimate that manufacturers – such as those in the automotive sector – are stockpiling AI out of “panic” that it will run out and now HBM4 memory is being produced, but in a few years there will be superior technology that will make AI faster and more capable… and the industry will turn to it again if the bubble doesn’t burst first. Domino. Meanwhile, companies like TeslaIntel or the Japanese giant SoftBank They want to get fully into the DRAM market and the companies Chinese companies like CXMT have an opportunity to meet the demand for AI for devices such as laptops. And, although we now see how it has impacted the price of loose components, we have to wait to see what happens in already assembled devices. Lenovo has pointed that the price of laptops is going to rise, but there are also warnings about important price increases in mobile phones, above all in low and mid-range devices, where the price of RAM represents a large part of the product cost. As I have said before, we have to cross our fingers so that the mobile phone or PC does not break, since once it is time to change it, paying the price will not be something pleasant. Images | Xataka, Bananovaya In Xataka | We … Read more

RAM memory already represents 35% of the cost of a PC. The only solution that HP finds: capable equipment

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The PC industry – like many others – is facing a perfect storm that is completely altering manufacturing costs. As revealed by Karen Parkhill, CFO of HP, RAM memory has increased its prices so much that its specific weight in the cost of a PC is now almost unsustainable. Bad business. 35% of what your PC costs you is RAM. According to the directive, RAM memory has gone from representing an acceptable 15–18% of the bill of materials for your PCs and laptops to representing a suffocating 35%. The change is drastic, and has occurred in just one fiscal quarter. Things will get worse. This increase is due to the fact that according to HP, memory costs have doubled sequentially and have grown by 100% in a few months. Not only that: the company’s forecast is pessimistic, and they expect prices to rise as 2026 progresses. From more expensive PCs… The direct consequence for users is inevitable: the prices of PCs and laptops are going to rise. Analysts are already warning of increases of between 15% and 20% in the RRP of these devices, and in fact HP has already begun to make changes to its price tags precisely to protect its profit margins in the face of the massive increase in the price of critical components such as DRAM memory and NAND chips in SSD units. …to capable PCs. But the price is not the only thing that will change. To keep the equipment “affordable”, HP is adopting another strategy that we had already seen in mobile phones: that of “cut specifications.” This means that we will see more low- and mid-range configurations with less RAM than one would expect in 2026. The measure is clearly intended to save costs at the sacrifice of performance. At the moment they are saving the ballot. At HP they are diversifying their suppliers and cutting back on specifications and extras to compensate for the extra cost of chips. The company is even using AI systems to optimize its planning processes and has halved the time it takes to qualify new materials for agile component changes. The demand for HP PCs is still there: its personal systems division grew 11% in revenue. The company warns, however, that this trend could fall: high prices could cause sales to slow down. Damn data centers. The big culprit of everything is AI, of course, which is causing most of the production of DRAM memory chips and NAND chips to be destined for the AI ​​accelerators of NVIDIA and other manufacturers and, of course, for the gigantic data centers that are being planned everywhere. In addition, the industry is focusing on HBM memories, which are much more powerful for AI applications but which cause the production of “traditional” memories to suffer. Hello, 8 GB of RAM in 2026. For many years it seemed that 8 GB of RAM had become the de facto standard in our laptops and many PCs, but a couple of years ago we clearly made the leap to 16 GB. This crisis threatens to take us back to the past and see many “affordable” computers with 8 GB of RAM. Can we survive with this memory? Most likely yes… if our use of the equipment is relatively modest. The 16 GB really helps a lot now that we have become accustomed to opening a lot of browser tabs and applications in an era where these consume more and more memory. 8 GB seemed like a thing of the past, but we fear that we will have to learn to live with that type of configuration again. In Xataka | If you were thinking about setting up a NAS to create your own cloud, we have bad news: AI has other plans

The RAM crisis is great for those who manufacture it. There are those who think that a tsunami will sink many others

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Looking at current technology is peering into a well of contrasts. On the one hand, the optimism of companies that push the narrative of a future supported by AI while spend tens of billions of dollars. On the other hand, the consequences for the consumer segment are a new component crisis. Nobody likes pessimism, but unfortunately the market does not bring good news, and the CEO of Phison has a clear message: Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. And that means that the RAM crisis It is going to take away some technology companies… in all sectors. In short. RAM and SSDs are the components that best exemplify the cost of data centers. They are elements that They have increased the price a real outrage and are made up of NAND flash chips. It is where the information is stored, but even those components need a ‘brain’, and that is where Phison comes into play. This Taiwanese company is one of the most powerful when it comes to creating something very specific: memory controllers. They are responsible for managing access, reading, writing and deleting data from NAND memory, among other tasks. Without them, these components could not function, so it is evident that Phison is interested in continuing to inflate the market. But its CEO, Pua Khein-Seng, has made it clear in a recent interview that this boom in data centers and artificial intelligence will have a disastrous consequence for the consumer market: there will be companies that go bankrupt. And it will be soon: by the end of 2026. slap. According to the boss of the controller company, this situation will put many consumer brands on the ropes, pushing some to disaster before the end of the year. When we talk about “consumer devices”, we refer to mobile phonestablets, consoles and computersbut also cars and of other devices with RAM and flash memories, such as televisions and even routers. Because it’s not that we can’t buy a couple of RAM pills, it’s that gigantic companies like Apple or Lenovo are already facing the problems involved in not having RAM. Memory production is dominated by just three companies and, although there are others such as Intel, tesla and the Chinese wanting to get their nails in the matterSamsung, Micron and SK Hynix are still the only ones capable of supplying the demands of the one that cuts the cod: NVIDIAas well as from Meta, Google or Microsoft. All production is focusing on creating memory for AI, and that means that Corsair, Dell, HP… but also Xiaomi, Vivo, OPPO, Sony or Nintendo They cannot buy RAM or they have to do so at higher prices. Consequence? That if they buy at a higher price, they must also sell the product at a higher price. And they may make devices that users are not willing to buy if they are more expensive either by price or by a less memory than that of previous generations. Unprecedented. There were already estimates that certain mobile companies were being more cautious with their shipment estimates for this year, but the CEO of Phison give a figure: between 200 and 250 million fewer mobile phones. It also targets the aforementioned PC industries (not those that we can assemble in parts, but to those pre-assembled by the companies) and to that of televisions. If all televisions are already ‘smart’, they need components that have a price through the roof. The executive is not the only interested party that has sent a pessimistic message about the situation. In statements to BloombergMicron’s executive vice president already pointed out that the current shortage is unprecedented, ridiculing even the previous components crisis that we live in 2020. In fact, something that is also unprecedented is that RAM manufacturers request payments up to three years in advance. Big Tech optimism. While users cannot buy components and consumer-focused companies are beginning to see sea level rise, Big Tech continues investing exorbitant amounts. There is not a day that we do not have news about billion-dollar investments in some data center or agreements between the main protagonist companies. And the most curious thing about that is that a lot is being invested in something that does not yet exist. Goal, for example, ends to buy graphics cards from NVIDIA for a data center not yet built. AND NVIDIA depends on Samsung I sent him a memory that he still doesn’t have. But the wheel keeps turning and, as one of the SMIC bosses commentedthe big feature of China, “no one has really thought about what exactly those data centers will do, but companies would love to build the entire capacity of the next 10 years in just one or two years.” We’ll see who gets ahead. Image | Andrey Matveev In Xataka | There was only one way to lower the price of RAM: Samsung and SK Hynix have flatly refused

RAM is in an “unprecedented” crisis. So much so that even Tesla is considering opening its own memory factory

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Neither technological advances nor a revolution in devices: crises are what is defining the last years of the sector. He veto Huaweithe semiconductor crisis of 2020 and now, the RAM memory crisis. The difference between this crisis and the previous one is that, although the 2020 crisis was caused by a perfect storm, the RAM memory crisis is being caused by excessive interest in data centers and AI. And it is taking all sectors ahead. That there is no RAM memory for consumers is a symptom, but it implies something much bigger: although the main producers are investing millions to increase your RAM productionit is not memory for consumption, but for GPUs and data center systems. Only a few companies dominate the production of these chips, and if they cannot produce them, they do not produce the memory chips for SSDs –raising the price-. They dedicate all production to meeting the demands of AI. And, as we read in FortuneElon Musk, one of the owners of some of the largest data centers on the planethas shown that there are two ways to face this crisis: hitting the wall or taking action. And the translation is that Tesla is considering building its own RAM factory. The problem is that it is easier said than done. Tesla and Intel interested in biting the RAM biggies In recent weeks, some of the world’s leading companies have presented results and RAM has been the central topic. PlayStation, for example, has assured that they are very aware of their ability to continue manufacturing PS5 with the goal of not going upagain, the price. And NVIDIA has been stating for days that it needs TSMC – its main chip supplier – and Samsung – who provides them with new generation HBM4 memory – get the batteries. Meanwhile, the outlook is not good. own NVIDIA aims for seven or eight years of construction no brake on data centers. Intel assures that The crisis will extend beyond 2028 and Micron, one of the big three in DRAM memory, has cataloged the market bottleneck as “unprecedented.” In this technological tsunami, and during Tesla’s results presentation at the end of January, Elon Musk pointed out that the company could need to build your own memory manufacturing plant. The objective is the one that all companies have: ensure supply. Going from scratch to manufacturing RAM memory is easier said than done, however, here Tesla has an advantage: they are not new to chip manufacturing. Although they abandoned the project for a few months, at the beginning of this year Musk himself stated that They came back with their own chip for your data centers. Additionally, there is the fact that they are a company with enough muscle to create a clean chip manufacturing room next to some of its existing plants. Intel is another one looking to become one of the important voices in the RAM conversation. Together with the Japanese giant SoftBank, they are developing an evolution of stacked DRAM memory that have been baptized as ‘ZAM’ and that seeks to break the HBM memory monopoly of Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix. Now, things in the palace are going slowly, and if Intel (which is already in it) It will take between three and four years to have commercial productsTesla’s ambition may go into the next decade. Let’s hope we don’t continue in this crisis by then, but if more “players” are interested in producing RAM, it would mean that, in the event of subsequent crises, there will not be a few that dominate the sector, producing a bottleneck like the one we are experiencing. Domino effect of the AMR crisis and China taking action Because this is not just about RAM being more expensive for users: it goes much further. If companies do not have the capacity to satisfy the demand for AI, they pour all their manufacturing muscle into a single task, neglecting the others. This explains the rise in the price of SSDs, but also of other products that should not have a leading role in this conversation: hard drives or HDDs. It is a brutal domino effect because, as we say, it goes beyond the modules being more expensive: RAM is more expensive for companies and that implies mobile phones or more expensive or with less RAMconsoles that increase in price (like what is happening posing for nintendo switch 2), machines that are late and they will be more expensive (like the Steam Machine), car problems and even impacting the routers. And in this scenario, in which companies like Intel or Tesla are considering taking a bite out of the RAM sector, we have some Chinese companies that had no role in the conversation. positioning itself as an option to alleviate demand. We told it a few days ago: there were reports indicating that PC brands such as Asus, Dell or HP were considering purchasing memory from Chinese manufacturers such as CXMT. Their modules are not as advanced as those of Samsung, for example, and they do not have the production capacity of South Korean companies, but… they produce. And in lean times, that’s better than selling laptops without RAM. Anyway, as we have said on occasion, there are still more companies joining the production of RAM when the crisis has already had a full impact, but the goal is not to create more RAM for ourselvesbut for your data centers. It’s time to entrust ourselves to the most sacred thing: that our PC doesn’t break and we need to update. Images | Gage Skidmore, Intel In Xataka | The US has a problem with its AI data centers: more and more states are opposed to building them

In the midst of the RAM crisis, Intel counterattacks with ZAM. It is the chip to break South Korean hegemony

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Few would have guessed not so many years ago the Intel transformation. The company that will dominate consumer processors and servers for generations has been through a real ordeal through the desert under the rule of AMD. However, they have returned for their rights and not only –rescue through– have positioned themselves to be the great American foundry, but are looking to take a bite out of the gigantic South Korean RAM memory industry thanks to its new memory: ZAM memory. And its weapon is three-dimensionality. Z for ‘zolution’. Do you remember when, in math class, you drew the first cube? The X axis is east-west. The Y axis is north-south. What the square needed to become a cube is the Z axis, the one up and down. That’s what engineers SAIMEMORYthe company resulting from the collaboration between the Japanese SoftBank and Intel, have applied traditional DRAM memory with a single objective: to assault the enormous market for high-bandwidth memory, or HBMwhich dominates data centers. Puff pastry. A few months ago we told you that the two companies They had embarked on a joint path to stand up to the dominance of Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron in the creation of high-performance memory. lHBM memory is preferred for data centers because it has a beastly bandwidth that allows a greater number of simultaneous operations. It’s like a huge highway. However, it has limitations: it is expensive to produce, requires a lot of energy, and gets hot enough to require expensive dissipation systems. Conventional DRAM memory was not an alternative, but Intel and SoftBank began to ‘play around’ with stacked DRAM memory. It is like a puff of RAM memory (simplifying things a lot), whose main limitation came when connecting each of those thin layers of memory so that the final product had the same capabilities as that highway that is HBM memory. ZAM. After a few months of research, a few days ago at the Intel Connection in Japan, SAIMEMORY and Intel presented the ZAM prototype. According to the companiesa ZAM module can have a capacity of up to 512 GB, it is easy to produce because it consists of designing vertically stacked chips and most importantly: it can reduce energy consumption by 40% to 50% compared to conventional HBMs. If HBMs are expensive and take time to produce, ZAMs are cheaper, can be the solution to alleviate restrictions in the supply chain and, in addition, would lower the energy consumption of data centers (which is one of the problems they have), and are also easier to cool. At the moment, the company’s research points to a theoretical limit of 20 layers, but current designs move around 16 layers, so performance may be better if this current limitation can be overcome. Real alternative. Intel’s ambition is total, since they point out that their DRAM module joining technology allows them to offer two to three times the capacity of HBM modules while being up to 60% cheaper to produce. It all seems like a plus and doesn’t seem like bad technology when established giants in HBM memory creation like Samsung are also researching how to overcome the limitations of connections in stacked DRAM memory. The prototype | Photo by PCWatch Ambition. And, almost as important as the presentation of the ZAM prototype, is the alliance itself. Intel has been away from the memory market for many years. He tried it in the 80s and, again, years later with his Optane technology -that died miserably without making the slightest gap in the market. On the other hand, SoftBank represents a Japan that had the lead in this sector in the 1980s, but was overshadowed by emerging South Korean companies. In fact, Intel’s memories were eaten by the Japanese… and the Japanese by the South Koreans. SAIMEMORY has behind it not only those sharks, but other Japanese companies such as Fujitsu, Shinko Electric Industries, PowerChip Semiconductor Manufacturing or the University of Tokyo. And if ZAM memory works on a commercial level, it will not only be good news to alleviate the memory production chains (perhaps this will also alleviate the domestic market totally destroyed for the data center needs), but will mark the birth of a new and ambitious player who seeks to break the hegemony of the trident he currently leads. We will see it, of course, in a few years, since SAIMEMORY plans complete prototypes in fiscal year 2027 and begin commercialization in 2029. Image | Samsung, Maxence Pira In Xataka | The CEO of Nothing is clear that we do not need a high-end mobile phone every year. A mix of RAM crisis and common sense

China had never had anything to do with the RAM conversation. Until the crisis came

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The current component crisis brings back memories of Vietnam. Specifically, of the semiconductor crisis of 2020. If at that time there were no chips due to COVID, the incipient trade war between China and the United States and natural disasters, now it is the exorbitant investment in artificial intelligence the one that is leaving us without SSD and, above all, without RAM. The three major memory manufacturers (Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron) have dedicated themselves to creating chips for GPUs in data centers, so much so that Micron has exited the consumer segment for dedicate all your production to meet the demand for AI. own NVIDIA will not launch the RTX 6000 this year Because of this, and apart from PC users, there are others affected by this crisis: RAM assemblers. To the point that there are already reports that the main PC manufacturers are thinking about buying RAM from Chinese manufacturers. To CXMT, specifically. Bad for many, support for Chinese RAM? If there is no RAM, there is no RAM. The problem is that, as we say, there are many brands that sell memory ‘pills’but not all of them manufacture that component. If you buy an SSD or RAM from Samsung, they have manufactured it, but if you buy a module from Corsair, what they have done is assemble the chips that have been purchased from one of the major RAM manufacturers. And then there are the PC vendors. HP, Asus or Dell do not manufacture the key components of their computers already assembled: they buy them from Intel, AMD, NVIDIA and RAM and SSD manufacturers. That is to say: this shortage of components that affects us as users, It is also impacting the main PC manufacturers. The perfect example is the Steam Machinewhich seemed like it would arrive at an attractive price and not only has it been delayed, but there are already signs that this crisis will cause it to be much more expensive than it should. Also the case of manufacturers selling PC… without memory. A few weeks ago we told you that, in such a situation, Asus was considering looking at the Chinese RAM industrybut now there are more reports pointing in that direction. Nikkei Asia point that Asus, Acer, Dell and HP are evaluating sourcing memory chips from China. It would be the first time, and one of the options is CXMT (which has ‘messes‘of course industrial espionage to Samsung). With Samsung turning to HBM memory and SK Hynix pointing out that its capacity is exhausted by 2026, the price of RAM has skyrocketed between 90 and 95% this first quarter of 2026. That’s where companies like ChangXin Memory Technologies They can take a bite out of the RAM market. “There is real potential for Chinese companies to aggressively expand in memory chips and flash memory” – Tae Kim A few weeks ago they presented DDR5 chips at 8,000 MHz for desktops and LPDDR5X at 10,667 MHz for portable devices and they have already started to supply to another Chinese company: Lenovo. Aside from the Nikkei Asia report, technology analyst Tae Kim – author of the book ‘The NVIDIA Way‘- also points out that HP is analyzing Chinese suppliers for products destined for the Asian and European markets. Kim points out that, while memory chips for GPU and AI have very specific characteristics, RAM memory chips are more ‘basic’, and this crisis of the large manufacturers can mean a golden opportunity for Chinese companies to “expand aggressively in the memory chip and flash memory space.” It certainly seems like the perfect opportunity for a company like CXMT that hopes reach 300,000 units manufactured per month in 2026 and that seeks to go public to raise 4.2 billion dollars that will allow them to expand their production. And they are not the only ones, since there are other heavyweights of Chinese RAM such as Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. -YMTC- that aspires to the same as its neighbor: to bite a piece of the pie that is the international RAM market. The production of Chinese companies is quite lower to that of Samsung, for example, but with a RAM market that will not ease until 2027 according to some2028 according to Intel and to whom It has seven or eight years of aggressive expansion leftAccording to NVIDIA, it is clear that companies like YMTC or CXMT have an opportunity that they should not miss. We will see if this alleviates the market somewhat, since right now it is impossible to consider building a PC…and the one we already have better not break. Image | Blake Patterson (edited) In Xataka | The RAM crisis is so extreme that it has achieved what seemed unthinkable: Apple’s memories are “cheap”

found RAM memory modules worth 500 euros in the worst time to buy them

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A Reddit user counted this week how he had a singular habit: rummaging through his neighborhood trash can in case he found some hardware treasure. And boy did he find it: among other things, he got two 32 GB DDR4 memory modules. Those modules thrown away as waste are a little treasureespecially because with the memory crisis Its market value exceeds 500 euros. what has happened. The user, who uses the alias “ringosbigfuckingnose” indicated that he makes regular visits to the local landfill in his area to look through the garbage that people throw away in search of components for their old PCs. He pointed out how he often comes across equipment from which he can salvage things, but the other day he found a real treasure: A Samsung monitor A 5.25″ floppy drive A 5-bay Drobo NAS Two 32 GB DDR4 memory modules A 10th generation Core i7 with its fan An ASUS motherboard A real find, without a doubt, but above all for one thing. 64 GB of RAM is 500 euros in your pocket. All of these components have value, of course, but it is especially striking that I found those two memory modules with a total of 64 GB. If you take a look around stores like Amazon or PcComponentes you will quickly see that two 32 GB DDR4 modules have a price that today is difficult to lower than the 500 or almost 600 euros. An absolute treasure. An ingenious solution to the memory crisis. What this user has achieved is to find a unique solution to the RAM memory crisis that has caused prices to rise. they shoot in an absolutely extraordinary way. It’s not likely that many people are throwing away memory modules lightly, but there are certainly plenty of people who find real treasures – especially in the form of old consoles and computers – in garbage dumps and recycling centers. And what for some is trash, for others is a small (or big) gem. On TikTok it’s easy find videos with people finding some devices that may be damaged, but that have possibility of being repaired. Electronic waste that is not waste. The Reddit user commented that he lives in a city of about 8,000 people, and the local landfill has a container for recycling electronic waste, something similar to what happens with the recycling centers or clean points that we find in Spain. It was in that part where this user found all those products as is, available for pickup. electronic waste. As they pointed out in Windows Centralthere are studies that indicate that less than a quarter of electronic waste is recycled properly. That means there is a lot of money wasted in the form of still valid hardware and also minerals and components that can be mined from those components. Image | Eugenia Pan’kiv In Xataka | The AI ​​leaves another news that will make the day worse for gamers: NVIDIA will not launch new graphics this year, according to The Information

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