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.
So much for open markets, somebody must check their books and manufacturing schedules.
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. :)
Let’s check their books and manufacturing schedule to see if they’re artificially constraining the supply to jack up the prices on purpose.
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.
They’ve been acting like a cartel for a long time now and somehow they never match the demand even after 18 months straight price increases. They already have the fab, the procedures, and everything, so stop acting like they’re setting up a brand new fab just to increase throughput.
Demand right now is so high that they'd make more net profit if they could make more dram. They could still be charging insane prices. They're literally shutting down consumer sales - that's completely lost profit.
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.
The fact that they’re busy doesn’t hide the fact that they’re known to collude before, and they might even ship parts to phony resellers to keep the price high.
What’s next? A commodity memory chip is going to cost more than a cpu or gpu die?
You want to tame their cartel like behaviors? Just get into their books and it would be clear as day if they’re artificially constraining the supply, and I’m not even talking about spending extra billions.
You cannot manufacture something that modern life depends on and not get government scrutiny.
You can ramp up production in limited capacity, make long term contracts, or pass the manufacturing rust to the buyer. When we needed a vertical stabilizer for a legacy aircraft we paid for an entire production like to be built just to manufacture two tails, so there are tons of ways to do this if you want to be competitive. But instead this is a cartel like market where manufacturers colluded before, so they’re more likely to collude than spend billions doing anything.
Just open their books and schedules with a competent auditors and see if they’re artificially manipulating things or not.