nand

The article analyzes the progress of China's memory industry in next-generation architectures such as 4F² DRAM and Xtacking, arguing that CXMT and YMTC have transformed from followers into active participants in new architectures, but still lag behind Korean manufacturers in HBM, advanced packaging, and high-end customer certification.

Report says Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have sold out all 2027 DRAM and HBM capacity to AI companies, worsening the RAM shortage and driving up consumer prices for memory, SSDs, and consoles.

AI infrastructure investment is driving up demand for memory (DRAM, NAND), causing aggressive price increases. UBS forecasts DRAM and NAND price hikes in Q3 and Q4, with the DRAM market expected to remain undersupplied until at least 2028.

Micron has signed 16 strategic customer agreements with floor prices ensuring historically high gross margins through 2030, citing structural supply constraints in memory and storage. The company reported record Q3 revenues and expects continued strong performance, though IT professionals may face tighter memory allocations.

Apple shipped a 20B parameter on-device model using a MoE variant that selects experts once per query to fit in NAND, enabling inference despite RAM constraints.

Sandisk's market cap surges to $231B driven by explosive AI inference demand for NAND flash memory, marking a structural shift from commodity pricing to strategic long-term contracts with hyperscalers.