Three firms—Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron—make almost all the world’s DRAM; a…
Three firms—Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron—make almost all the world’s DRAM; a gigabyte of HBM for AI uses roughly 3–4× the wafer capacity of a gigabyte of DDR5, so HBM disproportionately drains the shared wafer pool.
DRAM supply dynamics in 2026 are being reshaped by AI demand: three producers (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron) share a finite wafer pool and HBM—used in AI servers—consumes roughly 3–4× the wafer capacity per GB of standard DDR5. That imbalance has pushed HBM to ~30% of DRAM revenue while only supplying ~8% of bits, contributed to consumer/laptop RAM doubling in price this year, and left SK Hynix with essentially no sellable HBM capacity through 2026. Micron has reallocated wafers (walking away from Crucial) and locked multi‑year, prepaid contracts covering ~50% of revenue at floor prices above prior cycle margins, which the author argues breaks the historical commodity cycle. With HBM4 increasing stacking (12→16 dies) and buyers fronting cash, memory looks more like a constrained toll road for AI capex than a tradable commodity, a thesis the market may not yet have fully priced.
HBM already generates about 30% of DRAM revenue while shipping only ~8% of the bits, and that wafer diversion helped laptop/consumer RAM roughly double in price in 2026 as server/AI demand surged.Open reader