The manufacturers are willing to quadruple the prices for the foreseeable future but not change their manufacturing quotes a bit.

So much for open markets, somebody must check their books and manufacturing schedules.

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dgacmu 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In their defense, how many $20 billion fabs do you want to build in response to the AI ... (revolution|bubble|other words)? It seems very, very difficult to predict how long DRAM demand will remain this elevated.

It's dangerous for them in both directions: Overbuilding capacity if the boom busts vs. leaving themselves vulnerable to a competitor who builds out if the boom is sustained. Glad I don't have to make that decision. :)

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itopaloglu83 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I don’t think they’re working at 100% capacity or don’t have any other FAB that they can utilize for other low profit stuff.

Let’s check their books and manufacturing schedule to see if they’re artificially constraining the supply to jack up the prices on purpose.

	▲	dgacmu 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I'd take the opposite bet on this. They're diverting wafer capacity from lower-profit items to things like HBM, but all indications are that wafer starts are up a bit. Just not up enough. For example: https://chipsandwafers.substack.com/p/mainstream-recovery "Sequentially, DRAM revenue increased 15% with bit shipments increasing over 20% and prices decreasing in the low single-digit percentage range, primarily due to a higher consumer-oriented revenue mix" (from june of this year). The problem is that the DRAM market is pretty tight - supply or demand shocks tend to produce big swings. And right now we're seeing both an expected supply shock (transition to new processes/products) as well as a very sudden demand shock.
	▲	fullstop an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> I don’t think they’re working at 100% capacity or don’t have any other FAB that they can utilize for other low profit stuff. I have a family member who works in a field related to memory and storage fabrication. At the moment Micron, etc, are running these money printers full time and forgoing routine maintenance to keep the money flowing.

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filloooo 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Memory chips have always been a very cyclical business, that's why their stock prices remain relatively low despite a windfall happening.

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davey48016 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Most of the things people say about efficient markets assume low barriers to entry. When it takes years and tens of billions of dollars to add capacity, it makes more sense to sit back and enjoy the margins. Especially if you think there's a non-trivial possibility that the AI build out is a bubble.

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arijun 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If it’s an AI bubble, it would be stupid to open new manufacturing capacity right now. Spend years and billions spinning up a new fab, only to have the bottom of the market drop out as soon as it comes online.