dram

HIP-3 market deployer Entropy spent 500 HYPE (approximately $38,950) to acquire the code DRAM, which is expected to launch the io:DRAM perpetual contract trading.Previously, Trade.xyz had deployed the xyz:DRAM perpetual contract trading. DRAM is the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM), the world's first pure memory-themed ETF.

China's largest DRAM manufacturer Changxin Storage (CXMT) has recently launched a bidding for equipment from partners for its new factory in Shanghai and is advancing capacity expansion in multiple locations. CXMT is currently mass-producing DRAM in Hefei Phase II and Beijing Phase I, with an estimated capacity of about 200,000 wafers per month, which may exceed 300,000 wafers per month by the end of the year.CXMT plans to open the new factory in Shanghai in the fourth quarter of this year, and the related equipment bidding has already started. Semiconductor equipment industry insiders say that the factory is planned to be expanded in two phases, with capacity significantly exceeding 100,000 wafers per month. Subsequently, there are plans to open a new factory in Hefei in the first half of next year and the earliest new factory in Beijing in the second half of next year, with another new factory in Hefei opening in the first half of the year after next.Equipment industry insiders say that CXMT has communicated with multiple parties regarding the timing of building factories in various locations. If all plans are realized, CXMT could add at least 70,000 to 80,000 wafers of capacity per month each year from this year until 2028, with a long-term goal of exceeding 600,000 wafers per month. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix's DRAM capacities are estimated at about 700,000 wafers and 600,000 wafers per month, respectively.

According to Nikkei Asia, Chinese chip manufacturer Changxin Storage (CXMT) has taken the lead in profit margins over global competitors, surpassing SK Hynix and Micron. The company has leveraged the tight supply of commodity-grade DRAM to gain an advantage in the second quarter.Changxin Storage's main products include DDR5 memory, which has seen price increases in recent months. Reports indicate that this situation has emerged in the storage chip industry dominated by suppliers from South Korea, the United States, and Japan.

SK Hynix stated on the 9th that the development of the next-generation memory 3D DRAM semiconductor can utilize foundry processes. The day before, at the 2026 SK Hynix Future Forum held at the Supex Center in the Icheon campus, Vice President Kim Kyung-hoon and Son Ho-young presented the main technical directions for 3D DRAM, including the use of logic foundry processes for DRAM peripheral circuits, maximizing data bus bandwidth, and ultra-short distance transmission.3D DRAM is the next-generation DRAM that vertically stacks the originally planar storage cells to improve integration. The two stated that achieving this technology requires addressing not only design and heat dissipation issues but also challenges in fine interconnections, bonding, and process integration in the packaging field. As the boundaries between front-end and back-end packaging, foundry, and memory technology converge, collaborative optimization beyond existing fields will become more important. Son Ho-young mentioned that 3D technology is changing the technological boundaries between wafer fabs and packaging, and it is necessary to establish an optimization and new collaboration system that transcends existing fields alongside innovations in advanced packaging technology.In a related presentation, Professor Shin Chang-hwan from Korea University stated that 3D DRAM is not only about the vertical stacking of chips but also a technology that breaks the boundaries between memory and logic. As device miniaturization approaches its limits and the time and power consumption associated with data movement between systems and memory increases, the shift to 3D technology is inevitable. He proposed a 3D integrated design framework that links materials, devices, packaging, and architecture through artificial intelligence. SK Hynix President Kwon Oh-joon, in his speech, remarked that the past memory market resembled a straight road where the competition was about who could run faster, but now it resembles a constantly changing curve, making it important to grasp the speed and direction of external environmental changes and adapt flexibly in addition to internal capabilities.

Changxin Technology held a performance briefing for the first half of 2026. An investor inquired about the third quarter DRAM price situation, and the company's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Huang Danyang believes that looking ahead to the second half of 2026, the global supply shortage of DRAM products will continue.

KB Securities warned that the inventory of memory semiconductors at Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix has fallen to less than 10 days of supply, and the available supply next year will be significantly insufficient. The agency reported on Monday that investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure is expanding at an unprecedented pace, leading to a severe supply shortage in the memory chip market. A key factor is the transition to HBM4, which requires about three times the wafers of traditional DRAM, and limited wafer capacity will reduce the available capacity of traditional DRAM.KB Securities expects that next year, the demand for DRAM and NAND will exceed supply by more than 10 percentage points. Research director Kim Dong-won stated that artificial intelligence servers will consume HBM, server DDR5, and enterprise-grade solid-state drives, potentially leading to a historic shortage. Global hyperscale data center operators have raised their expectations for artificial intelligence infrastructure investment next year to $1.3 trillion, a 60% increase from the previous year. The agency anticipates that memory semiconductors will account for 57% of total investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure next year, up from 14% last year, with TrendForce estimating this ratio could reach as high as 68%. Samsung Electronics' stock price has dropped nearly 28% from its peak, while SK Hynix has fallen nearly 40%.

Changxin Technology held a performance briefing for the first half of 2026. The company's independent director Chen Wuchao stated in response to investor questions that in the first half of 2026, the global DRAM product market improved, and prices increased.Currently, the company is still in a critical investment period for capacity expansion and technological upgrades, and it needs to gradually create returns for shareholders while ensuring necessary capital expenditures. As profitability continues to strengthen, the company will legally and in accordance with regulations timely initiate the verification of the dividend plan.

According to TrendForce's latest research on the memory industry, in the second quarter of 2026, due to a significant increase in the contract price of Conventional DRAM, the overall revenue of the DRAM industry is expected to grow by 59.5% quarter-on-quarter, reaching nearly 154.73 billion USD.With the training of LLM models and AI inference stimulating the demand for AI Servers, shipments of HBM3e, LPDDR5X, and high-capacity RDIMMs are growing simultaneously, while Agentic AI applications are driving the demand for RDIMMs of various capacities. On the supply side, manufacturers' inventories are at a low point, and new supply is prioritized for Server applications, leading to a slight growth in overall DRAM bit shipments in the second quarter.

According to the Chosun Ilbo report on September 7, SK Hynix is accelerating the increase of the production share of 10-nanometer sixth-generation (1c) DRAM. Industry data shows that its 1c DRAM share rose from about 10% in the first quarter of this year to about 13% in the second quarter, and is expected to reach about 24% in the third quarter and about 34% in the fourth quarter; it may rise to about 35% in the first quarter of next year, surpassing 1b (about 33%) for the first time and becoming the main process. The share of 1b (10-nanometer fifth-generation) DRAM peaked at about 43% in the second quarter of this year and has since begun to decline.By the end of the second quarter, Samsung Electronics had a 1c share of about 16% and Micron about 19%, both higher than SK Hynix's approximately 13%. Reports indicate that SK Hynix is accelerating the transition in the second half of the year, and in the fourth quarter, it may exceed Samsung Electronics' approximately 31% with about 34%. SK Hynix stated in its second-quarter earnings call that the supply of DRAM using the 1c process will substantially begin from the second quarter, and in the second half of the year, with the ramp-up of HBM4 and increased shipments of 1c general DRAM, the bit growth rate will be higher than in the first half.Samsung Electronics will use 1c DRAM starting with HBM4, with a running speed of about 11.7Gbps; SK Hynix previously prioritized ensuring mass production stability with verified 1b DRAM and advanced MR-MUF packaging, and will use 1c DRAM for the first time as the core chip for HBM starting with the next generation HBM4E. Counterpoint Research and others estimate that this year, the market share of HBM4 under the combined metrics of Nvidia, Google, and AMD is approximately 50% for SK Hynix in the mid-range, 20% for Samsung Electronics in the later range, and 10% for Micron in the later range.

Taiwanese DRAM manufacturer Nanya Technology (stock code: 2408) announced on September 2 that its unaudited consolidated net sales for August 2026 were NT$44.690268 billion, a month-on-month increase of 1.88% compared to NT$43.867609 billion in July, and a year-on-year increase of 560.85% compared to NT$6.762501 billion in August 2025.The company also disclosed that its consolidated sales from the beginning of 2026 to date were NT$220.194 billion, a year-on-year increase of 638.19%. Detailed data can be found in the investor relations section of the company's official website or on the Taiwan Stock Exchange website.

Google's Senior Director of Supply Chain Infrastructure, Nikhil Cherian, revealed that to overcome memory bottlenecks, Google is developing software and hardware solutions and dismantling retired servers to recycle DDR4 components to establish an internal recycling supply chain. Google has designed special hardware adapters to connect the previous generation DDR4 to the new generation of AI servers while importing retired servers to remove their DDR4 modules for recycling.Cherian stated that the AI industry has rapidly shifted from being compute-constrained to memory-constrained, with high-performance memory accounting for about 75% of the bill of materials cost for a given AI server. A Goldman Sachs report indicated that memory prices will continue to rise in the third quarter, with personal computer DRAM prices expected to increase by 18% to 23% and server DRAM prices expected to rise by 13% to 18%. Trendforce data shows that in August, the spot market prices for DDR4 8GB and DDR5 8GB rose to $142 and $133, respectively.The two TPU ASICs launched by Google this year have been optimized for memory design, claiming to reduce memory demand to one-sixth of the original. The TPU8i chip features a dedicated layered memory design that relies on a high-speed DDR5 memory architecture to perform host-level tasks, with each chip equipped with 288GB of HBM3e high-bandwidth memory.

Nikkei Chinese reported on September 3 that demand for AI servers from Nvidia is driving the semiconductor memory DRAM market to accelerate upward. The price of general DRAM products used in personal computers and other devices increased by 5% month-on-month, while products for industrial equipment saw double-digit increases. Memory manufacturers are prioritizing the supply of AI server-specific memory, and its ripple effect is further spreading.In addition to being used in personal computers, cameras, and smartphones, DRAM is also installed in AI servers and other devices in data centers, serving as temporary data storage. As sellers, memory manufacturers negotiate monthly or quarterly with equipment manufacturers and module manufacturers, who act as buyers, to determine bulk transaction prices. The bulk transaction price for the 16Gb specification of the general model DDR5 used in PCs, game consoles, and servers was set at approximately $40.2 in July, an increase of 5% month-on-month. Prices have risen for seven consecutive months, and executives from electronics trading companies stated that they have reached a historic high.

The research institution Sigmaintell has released a storage price indicator showing that in the third quarter of 2026, the overall supply and demand in the global storage market remains tight. Prices for all categories of DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) and NAND Flash (flash memory) continue to rise month-on-month, but the rate of increase has significantly slowed compared to the second quarter, with the month-on-month increase for some storage chips narrowing to within 10%.

According to a report by South Korea's Seoul Economic Daily on August 31, the prices of HBM and DRAM used in AI accelerators continue to rise. Data from the Korea Trade Association shows that DRAM export volume decreased from approximately 681.7 million units in May to 591.74 million units in July, a decline of 13.2%. However, the export value increased from $11.428 billion to $13.552 billion, a growth of 18.5%, with the export unit price rising from $16.76 to $22.9, an increase of 36.6%.The supply of HBM4 to customers such as Nvidia is expanding, but the initial yield is lower than that of HBM3E, exacerbating the overall DRAM supply shortage. Samsung Electronics' memory division is reportedly planning to allocate about 70% of its capacity to long-term supply agreements until 2031, with major clients including Nvidia, Microsoft, and Google. Mega Grid Supply data shows that the spot price for HBM3E 36GB is $2,100, approximately 4 to 5 times the long-term contract price; the spot price for HBM4 16-layer, which is in mass production coordination, is about $3,500.The financial investment community expects Samsung Electronics' third-quarter revenue to reach 206.64 trillion won and operating profit to reach 116.38 trillion won, with operating profit expected to exceed 100 trillion won for the first time. SK Hynix's third-quarter revenue is expected to be 101.76 trillion won, with operating profit of 79.16 trillion won. Samsung Electronics is considering converting its only wafer foundry line S5 in the Pyeongtaek campus to memory production as early as next year.

Changxin Technology released its 2026 semi-annual report, with revenue of 150.31 billion yuan in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 873.64%; net profit attributable to shareholders was 77.61 billion yuan, compared to a loss of 2.33 billion yuan in the same period last year; net cash flow from operating activities was 131.16 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2985.64%; gross profit margin was 84.84%, and R&D investment was 6.859 billion yuan, accounting for 4.56% of revenue. As of the end of the reporting period, total assets were 468.078 billion yuan, and net assets were 270.749 billion yuan.The company is the fourth largest DRAM IDM manufacturer globally and the largest in China, with products covering DDR5, LPDDR5/5X, LPDDR6, etc. It has collaborated with leading clients such as Alibaba Cloud, ByteDance, Tencent, Lenovo, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo, and the fifth-generation process technology platform is undergoing customer certification. As of June 30, the company held a total of 4,484 domestic patents and 3,400 foreign patents, with 7,491 R&D personnel, accounting for 33.42%. The company has no controlling shareholder or actual controller, with the largest shareholder, Qinghui Jidian, holding 21.67%. The company was listed on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board on July 27, with an issue price of 8.66 yuan per share, and its market value exceeded 3.5 trillion yuan on the first day of trading.

According to South Korea's Chosun Ilbo, the export prices of DRAM in South Korea continue to soar, with AI-driven HBM production squeezing the supply of ordinary memory. Data shows that from the 1st to the 20th of this month, the export unit price of DRAM from South Korea reached $92,183 per kilogram, a year-on-year increase of 401%, and approximately 12.5 times higher than the low point in January 2023.Goldman Sachs expects the DRAM supply gap to widen from 5.0% this year to 5.9% next year, believing that the HBM required for AI servers and high-capacity server DRAM are absorbing limited production capacity, leading to further tightening of ordinary DRAM supply, with shortages potentially lasting until 2028. TrendForce predicts that by the end of next year, the wafer input for HBM production by Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron will account for 30% of the total DRAM wafer input, but HBM will only account for about 13% of the actual DRAM bit supply.Memory manufacturers warn that the supply tightness of DRAM and NAND driven by AI demand may continue until after 2027. SK Hynix stated that from the supply side, 2027 could become the most severe shortage year in the history of the memory industry.

According to DIGITIMES, Changxin Memory and Yangtze Memory continue to expand, and recently Apple is actively seeking to introduce the two Chinese memory supply chains, drawing attention to their entry into Apple's supply system. Industry insiders reveal that the two manufacturers are actually using Apple to prove that the quality of Chinese DRAM and NAND Flash has reached international standards, while secretly expanding their cloud and enterprise market share through third-party assembly for export to North American neocloud operators.Changxin Memory's parent company, Changxin Technology, has completed fundraising of 29.5 billion yuan, while Yangtze Memory plans to raise about 33 billion yuan through an IPO for production line upgrades and R&D. Yangtze Memory has turned profitable in 2024, with a net profit attributable to the parent company reaching 33.379 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2026; its third-phase new factory will begin production ahead of schedule in the fourth quarter of 2026, with a total monthly production capacity of 100,000 wafers, of which about 20% will be trial-produced LPDDR, becoming its first DRAM base. The supply chain indicates that the two companies are expected to increase the self-sufficiency rate of domestic memory in China to over 50% by the end of 2027 to 2028.Yangtze Memory sells NAND to third-party module manufacturers and assembles them into enterprise-level SSDs to avoid location sensitivity; Changxin Memory has already obtained certifications from small and medium-sized cloud operators in the U.S., Canada, and other regions. U.S. private enterprises can, in principle, procure from the two companies, with the entity list primarily restricting their access to U.S. technology, but not completely prohibiting private procurement. Cloud operators also reduce compliance risks through methods such as renting computing power or holding assets through third parties. The industry believes that Apple's influence on supply and demand in the industry is declining, and the two companies have no intention of supplying Apple in large quantities or engaging in price competition, making it difficult to meet Apple's demand in the Chinese market in the short term.

Analysis indicates that China's major DRAM manufacturer CXMT's monthly wafer output has reached a peak of approximately 240,000 pieces by the end of 2025, and is expected to remain flat in 2026. Due to the tightening of U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductor equipment, especially EUV lithography machines, its capacity for expansion is limited, and substantial expansion will not occur until at least 2027, depending on the progress of the domestic equipment supply chain. According to Goldman Sachs data, CXMT's coverage of domestic DRAM demand is only about 41% in 2026 and about 50% in 2028, reflecting a structural bottleneck for many years.TrendForce data shows that traditional DRAM contract prices are expected to surge by 90%-95% quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter of 2026, followed by another increase of 58%-63% in the second quarter. Jefferies predicts that prices will continue to rise by 40%-50% and 30%-40% in the third and fourth quarters, respectively. The price increase for server DRAM is even steeper, with Samsung and SK Hynix proposing price hikes of 60%-70% to clients like Microsoft and Google in the first quarter. S&P Global expects Samsung's traditional DRAM revenue per bit to rise by 116% year-on-year to $0.79 in 2026, while Micron's ASP will increase by 54% to $1.06; Bernstein predicts that SK Hynix's DRAM gross margin could reach 92.7% in the fourth quarter of 2026.Multiple forecasts suggest that effective supply relief may not occur until the end of 2027 or even 2028.

Goldman Sachs' research report on August 23 pointed out that the forecast for wafer front-end equipment (WFE) for 2026 to 2028 has been raised to $150 billion, $218 billion, and $281 billion, which is an increase of 6%, 17%, and 35% respectively compared to previous forecasts. The adjusted year-on-year growth rates for the next three years are 36%, 45%, and 29%, while the previous expectations were 28%, 32%, and 12%.Goldman Sachs believes that DRAM and advanced process foundry are the main short-term drivers. In the DRAM sector, capital expenditure forecasts for Samsung and SK Hynix have been raised by 22% and 19% respectively, with HBM4 mass production driving demand for etching, deposition, and other equipment; in the foundry sector, TSMC's annual capital expenditure has been revised up by $8 billion, and the N2 process is entering the mass production ramp-up phase. NAND and logic/others (including Terafab) will take over in the medium term, and the approximately $16.8 billion initial phase equipment investment promised by SpaceX and Tesla has been included in the WFE forecast.Goldman Sachs is bullish on global semiconductor equipment stocks, with a focus on recommending Applied Materials, Lam Research, ASML, Tokyo Electron, ASMI, BESI, Lasertec, and Ebara.