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| ▲ | josephg 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > The only way they will is if the hyperscalers and AI companies start to implode -- which will kill a huge portion of the US economy and lead to global recession, so, cheap RAM but nobody can afford it I disagree. Modern RAM is made in fabs, which are ridiculously expensive to manufacture. Modern EUV lithography machines cost around 500M each. They're manufactured by hand. Only one company in the world knows how to manufacture them right now. So we can't exactly increase global manufacturing capacity overnight. The way I see, there's 2 ways this goes: 1. AI is a fad. RAM and storage demand falls. Prices drop back to normal. 2. AI is not a fad. Over time, more and more fabs come online to meet the supply needs of the AI industry. The price comes down as manufacturing supply increases. Or some combination of the two. The high prices right now are because there's a demand shock. There's way more demand for RAM than anyone expected, so the RAM that is produced sells at a premium. High prices aren't because RAM costs more to manufacture than it did a couple years ago. There's just not enough to go around. In 5-10 years, manufacturing capacity will match demand and prices will drop. Just give it time. | | |
| ▲ | orthoxerox 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Only one company in the world knows how to manufacture them right now. And that company is in Europe, isn't it? The EU has a great opportunity to enter the market: it's a high-tech manufacturing job, not something that requires lots of cheap labor. | | |
| ▲ | deepsun 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, but it's not that important. Any complex high-tech product requires suppliers from all over the world. For example, I bet the EU company depends on a lot of China companies critically.
Just like any airliner is produced by pretty much the whole world. | |
| ▲ | joe_mamba 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > The EU has a great opportunity to enter the market: You can't just get into RAM manufacturing overnight whenever you feel like it, like you're building washing machines. You need a lot more than just ASML machines, you need the supply chain, the IP, the experienced professionals with know-how, the education system, the energy, the right regulations, etc. The EU exited the RAM manufacturing business a long time ago when RAM prices sunk, see Qimonda, meaning it would be a long, expensive uphill battle to get back in, and currently EU has no major semiconductor manufacturing ambitions, or ambitions in commodity hardware manufacturing of any kind, so that's not gonna happen. Of course, RAM is no longer a commodity right now, but nobody can guarantee it won't be again when the AI bubble burst and RAM prices crash, so spinning up the know-how, manufacturing facilities and supply chains from the ground up just for RAM is insanely expensive and risky and might leave you holding the bag. > it's a high-tech manufacturing job, not something that requires lots of cheap labor. Except semiconductor manufacturing DOES require cheap labor relative to the high degrees of skills and specialization needed at that cutting edge. Unlike in Taiwan, skilled STEM grads in the EU (and even more in the US) who invest that time and effort in education and specialization, will go to better paying careers with better WLB like software or pharma, than in hardware and semi manufacturing that pays peanuts by comparison and works you to death in deadlines. Also, profitable semi manufacturing requires cheap energy and lax environmental regulations, which EU lacks. So even more compounding reasons why you won't see too many new semi fabs opening here. | | |
| ▲ | lucianbr 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > nobody can guarantee it won't be again I hope we (Europe) can try some things even when they are not guaranteed to succeed and generate huge profits. Otherwise we are toast, though it might take some time to realise it. The concept of trying not-guaranteed things should not be so alien here on news.ycombinator.com I would think. | | |
| ▲ | joe_mamba an hour ago | parent [-] | | >I hope we (Europe) can try some things even when they are not guaranteed to succeed and generate huge profits. If EU hopes were cookies, I would have died of obesity 100 times over. EU is bad at learning from its own mistakes and being proactive on rapid changes on the world stage. It's always reactive and then only when it's too late and its actions are always limp-dicked. See Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine, rise of Chinese EVs, etc >Otherwise we are toast, though it might take some time to realise it. We already are toast for the long term, we just ignore it via printing more money and going into more debt, while kicking the can down the road for future generations to deal with the fallout. EU's biggest economies are working around the clock on how to fund the ever growing pension and welfare deficits, how to beat Russia, and how to stop people from voting right wing, not on how to claw back and on-shore cutting edge semiconductor manufacturing. >The concept of trying not-guaranteed things should not be so alien here on news.ycombinator.com I would think. Yeah but someone still needs to pay for that and take a risk. And EU investors don't like risking billions of their money to try out new things that are in competition with Asia on manufacturing because we cannot compete there. Labor costs too high, regulations too high, energy costs too high, environmentalism too high, we miss critical know-how. That's why nobody is investing in EU fabs and instead in other things that guarantee higher returns like services, pharma and weapons. |
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| ▲ | chii 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > In 5-10 years and waiting for 5-10 yrs for a lower price is a long wait for consumers. If food prices were high, would you say to the starving person to wait for 5-10yrs for food? | | |
| ▲ | josephg 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Thats a ridiculous metaphor. Ram isn't food. Nobody starved to death from insufficient RAM in their computer. | | |
| ▲ | briansm 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Economies die from lack of produce though. | | |
| ▲ | josephg 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | When the internet boom happened, computers had a tiny fraction of the RAM they have today. Everything worked fine. Programmers had to make efficient programs. But we were fine with that. We just programmed in C and C++ and shipped small binaries, because what choice did we have? Nobody tried to build desktop software in javascript on top of electron. And nobody built web servers in python. If all consumer devices only shipped with 1gb of RAM maximum, we'd get over it remarkably quickly. Just about the only times large amounts of RAM is an actual requirement is AI, some data science / simulation, and editing video in 8k. And maybe 3d modelling. Lots of programs we run today are memory hogs for no good reason - like the rust compiler, cyberpunk 2077 and google chrome. But we could make those programs much more memory efficient if we really had to. Cyberpunk wouldn't look as pretty. But nobody would really care. The economy won't die due to expensive RAM. Programmers will just adapt, like we've always done. | | |
| ▲ | chii 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > But nobody would really care. no, you should say that you personally wouldn't care, but that does not generalize. People do care, just like people prefer eating better food than just bread and milk. And after having had a taste of the good stuff, people do not want to revert - loss aversion is real. So if consumer devices regressed back to only having 1gb of ram, they will feel the loss, and they will complain if nothing else. The world of lean, efficient software that require little ram will not return. Programmers (read:companies selling products) will not adapt, but instead, the requirements for computing will become more exclusionary to those with the means. | | |
| ▲ | snovv_crash 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Software that uses less RAM isn't necessarily worse, often RAM is wasted purely due to carelessness and because it didn't matter. Your assertion that a world of lean software won't return is backwards looking; that was all driven by hardware being cheaper than developer effort. If we now enter a world of AI-enhanced developer effort being cheaper than hardware, perhaps we can have lean efficient software again. |
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| ▲ | m4rtink 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Do you really need EUV for RAM manufacture already ? IIRC RAM and NAND still DUV & EUV is really only used for the most cutting edge GPU & CPU stuff. | |
| ▲ | joe_mamba 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >Modern RAM is made in fabs, which are ridiculously expensive to manufacture. Modern EUV lithography machines cost around 500M each. They're manufactured by hand. Only one company in the world knows how to manufacture them right now. You're wrong here. You don't need the most cutting edge ASML EUV machines to make RAM. Most RAM fabs still use standard DUV. | | |
| ▲ | josephg 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Are DUV machines cheap and easy to manufacture? I suspect if they were, we'd see a lot of cheap RAM hit the market. Maybe some RAM chips don't need EUV lithography. but I suspect I'm still right about the economics. | | |
| ▲ | nl an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | DUV machines are ok, but it still takes 2 years to build a clean room factory. | |
| ▲ | joe_mamba an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | >Are DUV machines cheap and easy to manufacture? 100 million DUV machine is not your limiting factor when a whole fab costs 2-3 billion and requires specialized knowhow that few people in the world have in order to get good yields and be profitable. Otherwise everyone would be making chips if all you needed was to go out and buy a 100 million DUV machine then hit the "print" button to churn out chips like it's a Bambu 3d printer. >I suspect if they were, we'd see a lot of cheap RAM hit the market. Nobody spends 2-3 billion to open new fab just to make commodity low margin chips. New fabs are almost always built for the cutting edge, then once they pay off their investment costs, they slowly transition into making low margin chips as they age out of the cutting edge, but nobody builds fabs for legacy nodes that have a lot of competition and low profitability, except maybe if national security(the taxpayer) would subsidize those losses somehow. >but I suspect I'm still right about the economics. You are not. |
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| ▲ | Animats 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > You're wrong here. You don't need the most cutting edge ASML EUV machines to make RAM. Most RAM fabs still use standard DUV. Ah. Please check that. Which types of DRAM can be made in a DUV fab? Obviously the older ones, but are those obsolete for new computers. This really matters. | | |
| ▲ | sehansen 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | From Micron, everything up to their 1-beta node is DUV. Their 1-gamma node they debuted last year is the only EUV node they have. If you bought a Micron-based DDR5 RAM stick a year ago it would have been DUV and you could get those up to DDR5-8000. 1-gamma increases that to DDR5-9200, so if you can live with ~15% less performance DUV is good enough. | |
| ▲ | amluto 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | CXMT’s entire portfolio is made without EUV, and CXMT claims to have acceptable yield and performance comparable to other producers. Keep in mind that the high bandwidths of modern RAM modules aren’t really a property of the RAM cells so much as a property of the read and write circuitry and the DDR or HBM transceivers, and those are a large part of the IP but a small part of the die. There is no such thing as “double data rate” or “high bandwidth” DRAM cells. Even DRAM cells from the 1990s could be read in microseconds. Reading and streaming your fancy AI model weights is an embarrassingly parallel problem and even 1 TB/sec does not even come close to stressing the ability of the raw cells to be read. This in contrast to, say, modern tensor processors where the actual ALUs set a hard cap on throughput and everyone works hard to come closer to the cap. Take a look at what makes a modern computer with good RAM performance work: it’s the interconnect between the RAM and processor. | |
| ▲ | joe_mamba 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | DDR4 and basic HBM is still in high demand right now and that was made before the first EUV fabs came online. |
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| ▲ | amluto 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > 1) Prices aren't returning to "normal". > The only way they will is if the hyperscalers and AI companies start to implode -- which will kill a huge portion of the US economy and lead to global recession, so, cheap RAM but nobody can afford it RAM isn’t some commodity that gets mined at a fixed rate and therefore costs more when people want large amounts of it. It’s a manufactured good, made from raw materials that are available in huge quantity, that was produced and sold at a profit at 2024 prices, even accounting for the capex needed to produce it. Two things have changed. First, demand increased quickly. Second, big buyers sort of demonstrated that they’re willing to pay current prices, at least temporarily, so maybe the demand price elasticity has changed, or at least people’s perception of it has changed. None of prevents the price from going back down. The high prices have made it economical for new manufacturers to invest more to compete — look at CXMT. And CXMT doesn’t have EUV machines, which doesn’t appear to be a showstopper for them. | | |
| ▲ | zozbot234 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > at a profit at 2024 prices, even accounting for the capex needed to produce it 2024 prices were at a historical low, so we can't be sure that this is correct. Regardless, when production capacity is short-term constant, new RAM does get "mined" at a constant rate, a bit like bitcoin with its mining ASICs. |
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| ▲ | Gigachad 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Your first point highlights the huge unmitigated risk. There is no guarantee that this won't all implode, triggering a huge recession. And even if no one can afford the ram after, they especially won't be able to afford the more expensive European ram. Really the only way it could work is if the government declares it it a national security issue and will promise to subsidize it. Because in just a free market, it's most likely to flop. | | |
| ▲ | egorfine 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > government [..] will promise to subsidize it Subsidize what? Copilot prompt in the Run dialog or Notepad? Is this what you think might be considered for subsidizing? | |
| ▲ | phoronixrly 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's been a headscratcher for me... The EU and the US have an issue with CCP-subsidised tech giants, but their sole reaction is banning them in some form or other? In the EU it is from public tenders, in the US it's from dealing with US companies. This does not really help EU and US businesses to be competitive though, neither does it stop consumers going for the cheapest option... | | |
| ▲ | tacticus 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Those US companies that the US government bought part of and funded their expansions with no controls over the cartel... | |
| ▲ | joe_mamba 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >The EU and the US have an issue with CCP-subsidised tech giants Except EU and US tech giants also get massive government subsidies making such accusations hypocritical. Silicon Valley has its roots in cold war defense funding. What the US and EU don't like it that China has beaten them at their own game using their own rules, so now they need to move the goalposts on why we shouldn't buy Chinese RAM and protect western DRAM monopolies making amazing margins. |
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| ▲ | jorvi 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Prices are returning to normal, probably 2-3 years from now. SK Hynix is making absolutely monstrous investments in memory fabs and CMXT will be entering the market in force more and more. The biggest problem is that the industry wants HBM, whereas consumers want DRAM. Until the need for HBM has been sufficiently satisfied, fabs will prefer being tooled for HBM because businesses can be squeezed much harder than consumers. Then again, as consumer you don't really need DDR5 or even DDR4 so long as you aren't using an iGPU. Its all about being around CL15 timings. | |
| ▲ | nl an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The only way they will is if the hyperscalers and AI companies start to implode -- which will kill a huge portion of the US economy and lead to global recession, so, cheap RAM but nobody can afford it This isn't right. RAM prices (and most components) are very finely balanced between supply and demand. A small shortfall in supply leads to a large increase in price, and a large shortfall in supply leads to very large price increases. It takes 2 years for an existing RAM supplier to build a new clean room factory to make RAM. All the RAM manufactures saw this shortage coming 6 months ago. If you follow the news, the existing manufactures are investing heavily. Here's Hynix annoucements: Nov 25: Hynix plans 8-fold boost to cutting-edge DRAM production in 2026, https://overclock3d.net/news/memory/sk-hynix-plans-8-fold-bo... Dec 25: Hynix investing $500B (I guess this is a mistranslation somewhere!!???) in new RAM factories, https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/memory/hot-on-the-heels-of-... Jan 26: Hynix to spend $13 billion on the world's largest HBM memory assembly plant, https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/sk-hynix-to-... The supply is being built to match the demand. Prices will stabilize, and the manufactures know there is lots of latent demand. In 2 years time RAM prices for consumers will be normal again (not sure about GPU RAM though!) | |
| ▲ | m4rtink 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don't think anything other then a major implosion of the AI companies is possible. It is just not physically possible to go any other way due to he ridiculous amount of funny money they have invested to this dead-end & the non-existent revenue these companies are getting back for it. | |
| ▲ | NooneAtAll3 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The only way they will is if the hyperscalers and AI companies start to implode you're missing the picture that it's not companIES - the crisis primarily was caused by only one company OpenAI buying out wafers but even more than that - that wafer buyout is *an excuse* used by cartel - there are several mechanisms that could have eased out most of the problem (e.g. Samsung selling old equipment) that was not done to ride the money wave (also said "hyperscalers and AI companies" existed in spring 2025 too, yet the price was low) the winners will not be the ones who build new fabs - but ones who'll have enough money and government subsidies/import taxes to protect such investments after cartel decides to oversupply again, flushing the price down | |
| ▲ | danny_codes 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | FWIW I agree with you. The US should provide stable, consistent policy & funding so companies understand the regulatory environment and do long-term planning. Which is a good idea for when we don't have a dementia patient in charge of our country. EU should get on that though. | | | |
| ▲ | mullingitover 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The only way they will is if the hyperscalers and AI companies start to implode -- which will kill a huge portion of the US economy and lead to global recession, so, cheap RAM but nobody can afford it You can't reshore domestic manufacturing without creating legions of desperate workers with no other choice but to accept minimum wage factory jobs. | |
| ▲ | cyanydeez 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You think AI can't implode..wat |
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