Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 355 posts

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#51

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

I asked ChatGPT directly how it was fair that OpenAI bought 40% of the world’s RAM supply.

It denied this saying that the figures quoted were estimates only, that such massive RAM contracts would be easily obtainable public knowledge and that primarily the recent price increases were mostly cyclical in nature.

Any truth to this?

Edit to add: I am actually curious; I was under the impression that this 40% story going around was true and confirmed, rather than just hyperbole or speculation.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#52

Post by alephnerd »

Aerroon wrote: post #9

I think Europe should invest into manufacturing RAM. RAM isn't going anywhere, all of modern compute uses it. This would be an opportunity to create domestic supply of it.

> I think Europe should invest into manufacturing RAM ... This would be an opportunity to create domestic supply of it

How?

Most foundries across Asia and the US are being given subsidizes that outstrip those that the EU is providing, with the only mega-foundry project in Europe was canceled by Intel last year [0].

Additionally, much of the backend work like OSAT and packaging is done in ASEAN (especially Malaysia), Taiwan, China, and India. As much of the work for memory chips is largely backend work (OSAT and packaging), this is a field the EU simply cannot compete in given that it has FTAs with the US, Japan, South Korea, India, and Vietnam so any EU attempt would be crushed well before imitating the process.

Furthermore, much of the IP in the memory space is owned by Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, Chinese, and American champions who are largely investing either domestically or in Asia, as was seen with MUFG's announcement earlier today to create a dedicated end-to-end semiconductor fund specifically to unify Japan, Taiwan, and India into a single fab-to-fabless ecosystem [1]. SoftBank announced something similar to unify the US, Japan, Malaysia, and India into a similar end-to-end ecosystem as well a couple weeks ago [2]. Meanwhile, South Korea is trying to further shore up their domestic capacity [3] via subsidies and industrial policy.

When Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese technology and capital partners are uninterested in investing in building European capacity, American technology and capital partners have pulled out of similar initiatives in Europe, and the EU working to ban Chinese players [4] what can the EU even do?

----

Edit: can't reply

> Why are you overlooking European semiconductor champions

Because they don't have the IP for the flash memory supply chain. And whatever capacity and IP they have in chip design, front-end fab, or back-end fab is domiciled in the US, ASEAN, and India.

> STMicroelectronics

Power electronics and legacy nodes (28nm and above) for IoT and embedded applications.

> Infineon

Power electronics and legacy nodes (28nm and above) for automotive applications.

> NXP

Power electronics and legacy nodes (28nm and above) for embedded applications.

> All of them are skilled enough to build and operate a DRAM fab in Europe. A bunch of EU dev banks can lend the monies to get it built.

They don't have the IP. Much of the IP for the memory space is owned by Japanese, American, Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese companies.

Additionally, most Asian funds own both the IP and capital (often with government backing), making European attempts futile.

Essentially, the EU would have to start from scratch and decades behind countries with whom the EU already has FTAs with that have expanded capacity well before the EU and thus would be able to crush any incipient European competitor.

[0] - https://www.it-daily.net/shortnews-en/intel-officially-cance...

[1] - https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20260224VL219/taiwan-talent-...

[2] - https://asia.nikkei.com/economy/trade-war/trump-tariffs/soft...

[3] - https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20251230PD220/semiconductor-...

[4] - https://www.ft.com/content/eb677cb3-f86c-42de-b819-277bcb042...

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#53

Post by malshe »

Aerroon wrote: post #9

I think Europe should invest into manufacturing RAM. RAM isn't going anywhere, all of modern compute uses it. This would be an opportunity to create domestic supply of it.

Aren’t Chinese manufacturers already expanding their capacity? Given that Samsung and SK Hynix have left that market in the pursuit of HBM4 chips, China is going to rule this market. At least that’s what analysts are saying.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#54

Post by throw_rust »

echelon wrote: post #23
asadm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

win win, considering the slop game studios are pushing out these days.

I'm glad we're starting to use the term "slop" for human outputs as well. Especially corporate slop.

It was used to refer to human output to begin with, in certain corners of the internet.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#55

Post by alephnerd »

malshe wrote: post #53
Aerroon wrote: post #9

I think Europe should invest into manufacturing RAM. RAM isn't going anywhere, all of modern compute uses it. This would be an opportunity to create domestic supply of it.

Aren’t Chinese manufacturers already expanding their capacity? Given that Samsung and SK Hynix have left that market in the pursuit of HBM4 chips, China is going to rule this market. At least that’s what analysts are saying.

Chinese manufacturers like CXMT face the same kinds of issues that Huawei faced in entering the EU market - the EU is clamping down on Chinese suppliers across their supply chain [0].

Where can CXMT and other Chinese players export when Japan, South Korea, much of ASEAN, India, much of North America, the EU, the UK, Australia, NZ, and parts of the Gulf have enacted or begun enacting trade barriers against Chinese exports?

[0] - https://www.ft.com/content/eb677cb3-f86c-42de-b819-277bcb042...

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#56

Post by kgeist »

nine_k wrote: post #22
throw_m239339 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn’t the EU have an excellent education system? Well, the EU has not manufactured a whole lot of chips in the last 30 years, where do you get the people with the professional experience to teach new engineers... Oh you mean you have to import the teachers from South Asia too? /s and it takes what, 5 years at the minimum to train an engineer? France and UK used to produce entire home computers... in the 80's...

Come on, STM, Nordic, Infineon, NXP are all European. There is a bunch of chip-making installations in Dresden, Germany (Global Foundries, Bosch, etc), and there's Intel Fab 34 in Ireland. BTW TSMC is planning to open a production facility in Europe in 2027. This is not comparable to Taiwan or the Shenzen area, but it's definitely not nothing. Some local expertise exists, even though it may be not the most cutting-ed…

ASML, which is based in the Netherlands, produces chip-making machines which TSMC and everyone else use to produce said chips. I think they got some expertise too :)

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#57

Post by Gigachad »

dijit wrote: post #39
Gigachad wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worry is that these high prices aren't going to last long. And by the time you spend years building the capacity, the prices plummet making your facility uneconomical to run. Ram will always be in some demand, but that doesn't mean it's viable for everyone to start building production.

There's a few things to note here: 1) Prices aren't returning to "normal". The only way they will is if the hyperscalers and AI companies start to implode -- which will kill a huge portion of the US economy and lead to global recession, so, cheap RAM but nobody can afford it 2) By building up capacity you influence the outcome. If someone else enters the DRAM space, the duopoly has to actually start thinking about co…

Your first point highlights the huge unmitigated risk. There is no guarantee that this won't all implode, triggering a huge recession. And even if no one can afford the ram after, they especially won't be able to afford the more expensive European ram.

Really the only way it could work is if the government declares it it a national security issue and will promise to subsidize it. Because in just a free market, it's most likely to flop.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#58

Post by Ygg2 »

dijit wrote: post #34
bsimpson wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope so. Resource usage has been on a hedonic treadmill at least since I came online in the 90s. Good things have come from that, of course, but there's also plenty of abstraction/waste that's permitted because "new computers can handle it." With so many gaming devices based on the AMD Z1 Extreme platform (and its custom Valve corollaries) over the past few years, it'll be great to see that be the target/baseline f…

I'm not sure how we got on to games as resource hogs when Teams uses 2GiB of RAM and Windows itself uses 4GiB of RAM. I work in gamedev, so perhaps I'm a bit sensitive, and I understand that general purpose engines aren't as light on resources as the handcrafted ones that nobody can afford to make anymore... but we're not anywhere close to the layers of waste and abstraction that presents itself when using webtech fo…

A 10 FPS drop in grand strategy is imperceptible, but 10 FPS drop in an fast paced fighting game is controller-toss infuriating.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#59

Post by danny_codes »

dijit wrote: post #39
Gigachad wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worry is that these high prices aren't going to last long. And by the time you spend years building the capacity, the prices plummet making your facility uneconomical to run. Ram will always be in some demand, but that doesn't mean it's viable for everyone to start building production.

There's a few things to note here: 1) Prices aren't returning to "normal". The only way they will is if the hyperscalers and AI companies start to implode -- which will kill a huge portion of the US economy and lead to global recession, so, cheap RAM but nobody can afford it 2) By building up capacity you influence the outcome. If someone else enters the DRAM space, the duopoly has to actually start thinking about co…

FWIW I agree with you. The US should provide stable, consistent policy & funding so companies understand the regulatory environment and do long-term planning.

Which is a good idea for when we don't have a dementia patient in charge of our country.

EU should get on that though.

Post reply on HN