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kryptiskt 3 hours ago [-]
This reads like Apple fanfiction to me.
> But then Apple can negotiate on another basis and say, well, if you don’t do us a favor here and give us a better rate, then maybe we won’t work with you when all this settles down. You know things are going to settle down. These things are always cyclical. There’s never been a semiconductor boom that’s not followed by a semiconductor bust. Never. And they know it.
I have to think that the RAM suppliers wouldn't be that easy to intimidate with threats, since they know perfectly well how few alternatives Apple has. And they are also perfectly aware that Apple will play hardball with them when the market turns, regardless of whether they were nice to Apple now.
coredog64 2 hours ago [-]
Apple bought PA Semi as the starting point to getting off of Intel. Theoretically, memory seems like something Apple could figure out how to fab. And it's not like they don't have any capital reserves.
ls65536 2 hours ago [-]
They bought P.A. Semi, but it was for their design capability; they never had fabs anyway, and Apple still depends on TSMC and others for manufacturing chips. Apple building fabs to ensure a guaranteed supply of memory (or logic) chips would be an unprecedented level of vertical integration, even for them.
GeekyBear 2 hours ago [-]
In the Tim Cook era when Apple needs to lock down the supply of a commodity part, they have a history of buying a dedicated manufacturing line for a manufacturing partner.
opengrass 2 hours ago [-]
Can't even find a ddr2 sodimm that's not a ripoff.
jackmott42 16 minutes ago [-]
build a fab!
christkv 3 hours ago [-]
Our problem is lack of competition
SoftTalker 2 hours ago [-]
High prices for RAM should attract competition.
pixl97 2 hours ago [-]
In general, no.
It takes billions to tens of billions to setup a fab. It also takes years to get it working. Then when you add in the IP for memory, it pretty much ain't happening.
All the RAM monopoly has to do is wait 3 days before you're producing and drop the price and you're ruined. Meanwhile they've built up a battle chest of hundreds of billions in profits.
China might be the only competition we see come out of this, but only because they are playing the long game and have trillions of US dollars to play the game with.
SoftTalker 2 hours ago [-]
There are a lot of companies that have billions in cash and are also prodigious buyers of RAM. Companies like Apple, Google, Meta, Nvidia...
Do they want to get into a commodity business like RAM production? Maybe not, but if prices stay high long enough that demand for their products falls off, they might think about it.
I know that I personally and my employer are cutting way back on new technology purchases and squeezing as much as we can out of old equipment due to the cost of RAM and storage now.
cogman10 2 hours ago [-]
And none of these companies are operating their own fabs, that's the problem.
Fabs are a cutthroat business that's very hard to get into. It costs billions of continual investment to stay a float. That's why there's really only about 3 different companies with cutting edge fabs. TSMC, Micron, and Samsung. Even intel, who built a huge portion of their business on cutting edge fab tech, has struggled to keep funding it. AMD got out of the fab business almost a decade ago (spinning off global foundries) and that spin off is no longer cutting edge. AMD uses TSMC.
Fabs are some of the most expensive factories to operate on this planet due to a constant need for brand new equipment and cutting edge research. That's why there's not an Apple, Google, Meta, or Nvidia fab. That's why there's not an AMD fab. That's why Intel fabs are treading water.
Without the constant investment, you very quickly find yourself in the company of yet another cutthroat industry, the "not cutting edge" fabrication industry. And that, by and large, has already been locked up by about a dozen fab companies.
xenadu02 17 minutes ago [-]
I've made this same argument so let me make a counter-argument:
There are some ways to get this off the ground much quicker. One or more companies could buy an existing non-leading-edge fab like GlobalFoundaries. That buys a lot of expertise so you're not starting from zero.
DRAM also benefits from being very regular and relatively simple. It used to be what you bring up on a new process node to help prove things out.
It also isn't impossible to reduce reliance on ASML if you're willing to throw money at it. That's definitely a super-long-game move but it could be done.
I'm not going to argue that someone is going to do any of this but if demand is sustained it is possible.
SoftTalker 1 hours ago [-]
And a 64G DDR5 ECC DIMM costs $3K and is backordered. If ths isn't a bubble and demand persists, some new players are eventually going to want a cut of that.
cogman10 1 hours ago [-]
We aren't talking about making new lug-nuts. A company can't just will a fab into existence.
For example, Micron is actively building a few new fabs. One of which has been in progress since Biden (pretty close to my home in fact). It's not going to be completed for another 5 years at a minimum. And this is a company that has the experience and partnerships for producing fabs.
Yes, a new company might decide they want to enter the market, but even if they decided, today, "Yes we'll do this" I'd expect a minimum of a decade before they start spinning out their first chips. That's also at least a $1T investment at this point to get started.
mschuster91 44 minutes ago [-]
The thing is, pretty much everyone relevant assumes it is a bubble and that eventually large players will end up facing mob justice. That's why the hundreds of billions of $ IOUs are getting passed around like hot potatoes, and that's (in addition to ASML, the key part of anything EUV lithography, being booked out for years) why no one is planning to construct dozens of billions of dollars worth of fabs.
In addition, the know-how is concentrated in Taiwan. You literally can't train enough people in enough time to move everything out of there.
pixl97 43 minutes ago [-]
So yea, Samsung built a chip factory pretty close to where I live. Number one it is forking gigantic. You don't just slap one of these babies down. Next, the equipment that goes inside of that massive clean room building is a problem in itself. That takes years to get ordered, then years to ensure it works right, with employees that have a very particular skill set.
Again, people might want part of it, but they are also a bit smarter than you are and read history books to see exactly how this is going to play out and then they gladly walk away before they light their money on fire.
pixl97 1 hours ago [-]
>a lot of companies that have billions in cash
They sit on billions because they avoid spending their money as much as possible.
The amount they spend on RAM in surrounding few years would represent almost nothing to the massive money hole that would happen if they tried to make their own fab.
Also, these problems tend to affect the entire market, which means if you're big, you're fine. It's when problems don't affect your competitors but affect you that the real issues for these companies crop up.
GeekyBear 2 hours ago [-]
Chinese DRAM production is already getting ready to ramp up.
Real life is not SimCity, you can't just plonk more RAM factories like that. It takes an ungodly amount of capital investment, many years before you see a cent in return, plus there's only a couple firms worldwide that can do it in the first place.
refulgentis 2 hours ago [-]
"So much so that I heard Samsung’s making more money now with memory than Nvidia’s making with their processors."
I loved Asymco during the Apple 2010s run up, but this, inter alia things mentioned in other comments, should give the reader pause and evaluate how much of this is general knowledge x handwaving x vibes versus a practical ground floor understanding in 2026.
> But then Apple can negotiate on another basis and say, well, if you don’t do us a favor here and give us a better rate, then maybe we won’t work with you when all this settles down. You know things are going to settle down. These things are always cyclical. There’s never been a semiconductor boom that’s not followed by a semiconductor bust. Never. And they know it.
I have to think that the RAM suppliers wouldn't be that easy to intimidate with threats, since they know perfectly well how few alternatives Apple has. And they are also perfectly aware that Apple will play hardball with them when the market turns, regardless of whether they were nice to Apple now.
It takes billions to tens of billions to setup a fab. It also takes years to get it working. Then when you add in the IP for memory, it pretty much ain't happening.
All the RAM monopoly has to do is wait 3 days before you're producing and drop the price and you're ruined. Meanwhile they've built up a battle chest of hundreds of billions in profits.
China might be the only competition we see come out of this, but only because they are playing the long game and have trillions of US dollars to play the game with.
Do they want to get into a commodity business like RAM production? Maybe not, but if prices stay high long enough that demand for their products falls off, they might think about it.
I know that I personally and my employer are cutting way back on new technology purchases and squeezing as much as we can out of old equipment due to the cost of RAM and storage now.
Fabs are a cutthroat business that's very hard to get into. It costs billions of continual investment to stay a float. That's why there's really only about 3 different companies with cutting edge fabs. TSMC, Micron, and Samsung. Even intel, who built a huge portion of their business on cutting edge fab tech, has struggled to keep funding it. AMD got out of the fab business almost a decade ago (spinning off global foundries) and that spin off is no longer cutting edge. AMD uses TSMC.
Fabs are some of the most expensive factories to operate on this planet due to a constant need for brand new equipment and cutting edge research. That's why there's not an Apple, Google, Meta, or Nvidia fab. That's why there's not an AMD fab. That's why Intel fabs are treading water.
Without the constant investment, you very quickly find yourself in the company of yet another cutthroat industry, the "not cutting edge" fabrication industry. And that, by and large, has already been locked up by about a dozen fab companies.
There are some ways to get this off the ground much quicker. One or more companies could buy an existing non-leading-edge fab like GlobalFoundaries. That buys a lot of expertise so you're not starting from zero.
DRAM also benefits from being very regular and relatively simple. It used to be what you bring up on a new process node to help prove things out.
It also isn't impossible to reduce reliance on ASML if you're willing to throw money at it. That's definitely a super-long-game move but it could be done.
I'm not going to argue that someone is going to do any of this but if demand is sustained it is possible.
For example, Micron is actively building a few new fabs. One of which has been in progress since Biden (pretty close to my home in fact). It's not going to be completed for another 5 years at a minimum. And this is a company that has the experience and partnerships for producing fabs.
Yes, a new company might decide they want to enter the market, but even if they decided, today, "Yes we'll do this" I'd expect a minimum of a decade before they start spinning out their first chips. That's also at least a $1T investment at this point to get started.
In addition, the know-how is concentrated in Taiwan. You literally can't train enough people in enough time to move everything out of there.
Again, people might want part of it, but they are also a bit smarter than you are and read history books to see exactly how this is going to play out and then they gladly walk away before they light their money on fire.
They sit on billions because they avoid spending their money as much as possible.
The amount they spend on RAM in surrounding few years would represent almost nothing to the massive money hole that would happen if they tried to make their own fab.
Also, these problems tend to affect the entire market, which means if you're big, you're fine. It's when problems don't affect your competitors but affect you that the real issues for these companies crop up.
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ram/hp-reportedly...
I loved Asymco during the Apple 2010s run up, but this, inter alia things mentioned in other comments, should give the reader pause and evaluate how much of this is general knowledge x handwaving x vibes versus a practical ground floor understanding in 2026.