DRAM Shortage May Occur Due to HBM Investment

TapTechNews May 21st news, industry sources said that Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron are all actively investing in High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), and due to the capacity crowding effect, DRAM products may face shortages in the second half of the year.

TrendForce Consulting believes in the report that the three major DRAM suppliers are increasing wafer input of advanced processes. With the rise of memory contract prices, companies have all increased their capital investment intensity, and will focus on expanding production capacity in the second half of this year. It is expected that by the end of this year, the wafer input of 1αnm and above processes will account for about 40% of the total DRAM wafer input.

Due to the profitability and growing demand of HBM, manufacturers give priority to producing HBM. HBM3e will become the mainstream of the market this year, and the shipments will be concentrated in the second half of the year.

As the shipments of HBM3e are expected to be concentrated in the second half of the year, coinciding with the peak season of memory demand, the market demand for DDR5 and LPDDR5(X) is also expected to increase.

Due to the high proportion of wafer input allocated to HBM production, the output of advanced processes will be limited. Therefore, the capacity allocation in the second half of the year will be the key to determining whether the supply can meet the demand.

TapTechNews briefly summarizes the situation of manufacturers as follows: Samsung expects that the existing facilities will be fully operational by the end of 2024, and the new P4L factory is expected to be completed in 2025, while the Factory 15 will transition from 1Y nanometers to 1beta nanometers and above processes.

SK Hynix plans to expand the capacity of the M16 factory next year, and the M15X factory is also planned to be completed in 2025 and start mass production by the end of next year.

All major manufacturers will invest in the development of HBM4 and give priority to HBM in capacity planning. Therefore, due to the capacity crowding effect, the supply of DRAM may be in shortage.