Every 3-4 years RAM prices spike.
There is always an excuse like a fire in a factory.
I believe the truth is 1) we have little amount of suppliers, and 2) supply is very near the limit of what can be sold.
There's also been not one but two price fixing settlements at different times for the same companies. Almost like every few years they get bold enough to try again, and just settle as the cost of doing business
> Samsung Electronics has lowered its target for NAND wafer output this year to around 4.72 million sheets, about 7% down from the previous year's 5.07 million. Kioxia also adjusted its output from 4.80 million last year to 4.69 million this year.. SK hynix and Micron are likewise keeping output conservatively constrained in a bid to benefit from higher prices. SK hynix's NAND output fell about 10%, from 2.01 million sheets last year to around 1.80 million this year. Micron's situation is similar: it is maintaining production at Fab 7 in Singapore—its largest NAND production base—in the low 300,000-sheet range, keeping a conservative supply posture.
China YMTC (sanctioned by US) and CXMT are increasing production capacity.
Especially when those companies were already caught doing it multiple times over and told to stop.
There's no evidence that they're coordinating, though.
Both parties can have perfectly rational reasons to both exist and hate each other at the same time.
They also don't like being "grabbed by the balls" in a few years time when demand inevitably recedes. It's pretty obvious that people here are throwing a temper tantrum because they need to pay more, and companies aren't rushing in to raise supply, even if they themselves admit such actions would be dumb.
Here's some basic analysis it did (AI, so take with grain of salt): https://shottr.cc/s/2zv5/SCR-20251127-fm6p.png
2016–2018 price spike
DRAM prices nearly tripled.
Driven by smartphone demand + server build-out + constrained supply expansion.
Resulted in the 2018 antitrust lawsuit accusing Samsung, Micron, SK hynix of coordinated output limits.
2019 oversupply crash
After the spike, memory makers over-invested capacity.
Demand softened; inventories built up.
Prices fell sharply — ~35–40% decline.
2020 mild recovery
COVID WFH / remote boom → PC sales up → DRAM demand rose slightly.
Prices recovered modestly.
2021 rebound
Data-center and cloud expansion returned.
DDR5 ramping begins.
Market in recovery — but not frothy.
2022–2023 bottom
Smartphone shipments declined globally.
PC demand dropped post-COVID.
OEMs had too much inventory → massive price declines.
Some DRAM sold below production cost.
2024–2025 AI/HBM super-cycle
AI training systems (NVIDIA, AMD, etc.) require large HBM arrays.
Fab capacity reallocated from commodity DRAM → HBM.
AI hyperscalers (OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, Tesla) created enormous DRAM draw.
Commodity DRAM restricted → price spike ≥170% YoY.