Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing • Hacker News Board

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#131

Post by Neywiny » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 7:37 PM UTC

nubinetwork wrote: post #121

Neywiny wrote: post #7

HBM is also DRAM. I also think it's kind of a weak argument to say that them discontinuing ddr3 (which while in use still today in industrial/embedded was on the way out for consumers 10 years ago) and ddr4 which last had consumer CPUs for it 3 years ago is meaningful. What we need now is ddr5. Turning off the old fabs and moving those resources including people to ddr5 is a good thing. That's not price fixing. It's…

I was hoping it was a typo, and they actually meant 4 and 5... I didn't even know people made products that still use ddr3.

Especially industrially, ddr3l is just fine. At a certain point you don't need the speed of newer generations, and buying new idk lpddr5x/t controllers for 30 year old process nodes just isn't worth it. Until ddr3/l to EOL from everybody. The big 3 aren't the only memory fabs.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#132

Post by Danox » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 7:39 PM UTC

Catloafdev wrote: post #55

I don't see how this can really go anywhere, but it'd be nice if it does. Not like it'd be the first time someone shook a stick at them. At this point the only hope for change is if China finally decides to get in the game rather than just threatening to.

The Chinese will get into the game, all right worldwide where most other places aren’t going to care about anything other than the price.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#133

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 7:41 PM UTC

Stitch4223 wrote: post #99

mywittyname wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arguments made by the Plaintiff are thoroughly convincing to me. The fact that those 8 points are not enough to convict indicate the industry is fucked. Of course the defendants didn't leave a paper trail - they've already been convicted of collusion before. It's the people and country that suffer when our government fails to ensure markets are free and fair.

If there is no agreement, then the magic term is "tacit collusion." Why not ask the same ridiculous amount of money your competitors do? People seem to be paying for it. Their fault. If suppliers have sufficiently different products, they can make some more expensive, others cheaper; on average, everybody pays more. A high barrier to entry might help such practices. That doesn't mean I'm saying this is what is happen…

> Why not ask the same ridiculous amount of money your competitors do? People seem to be paying for it. Their fault.

That's not how commodity markets work. This stuff is essentially sold at auction with the price set by supply and demand. The way they would fix the price is by constraining supply so that people have to outbid each other on a smaller amount of inventory.

But that's not that hard to measure -- are they producing less than they were before prices went up? The answer is actually that they're producing more. The reason prices went up anyway is the huge increase in demand.

You would then have to make the case that it's not just that they're reducing supply but that they're not increasing it fast enough. That's theoretically possible but it's also very plausible that building new fabs just takes time, so if someone's theory is that they're colluding then they need to present some evidence.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#134

Post by Danox » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 7:50 PM UTC

russli1993 wrote: post #58

0xy wrote: post #3

I think it's incredibly unlikely to be deliberate price fixing this time. Demand is too high.

if demand is too high, the market will adjust by adding supply. If Apple can't take the price of memory, why don't they make memory themselves. Oh no, the technical and manufacturing know-how is a barrier to entry and there is no talent available to make it. That is memory or semi companies' competitive advantages and their pricing power. It also takes Phd degrees to work at hardware companies. You can't have people…

Between TSMC, Intel and Apple memory can be designed, engineered and made, and that doesn’t even include the Chinese who will probably use this to take over a large part of the memory market worldwide?, the three-headed memory cartel is unsustainable, they have two to four years maximum and that’s it.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#135

Post by Neywiny » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 7:50 PM UTC

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #10

Neywiny wrote: post #7

HBM is also DRAM. I also think it's kind of a weak argument to say that them discontinuing ddr3 (which while in use still today in industrial/embedded was on the way out for consumers 10 years ago) and ddr4 which last had consumer CPUs for it 3 years ago is meaningful. What we need now is ddr5. Turning off the old fabs and moving those resources including people to ddr5 is a good thing. That's not price fixing. It's…

Switching off DDR3 manufacturing I can understand, but DDR4 machines are still quite relevant and usable… Ryzen 5000 series boxes for example don’t feel meaningfully weaker than they did when new. My 5950X tower certainly doesn’t, and it’d really be nice to be able to upgrade its RAM should I need to because it will continue to be useful for quite some time. AMD just re-released their 5800X3D for AM4 board users who…

Not to be a bootlicker but AMD releasing a product doesn't mean another company should make more DDR4. That's not price fixing. In the embedded space it's sadly very common for a part to be compatible with a very low number of options (shout out to cellular/admux RAM on the STM32H745 nucleo). That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#136

Post by thewebguyd » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 7:51 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #133

Stitch4223 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is no agreement, then the magic term is "tacit collusion." Why not ask the same ridiculous amount of money your competitors do? People seem to be paying for it. Their fault. If suppliers have sufficiently different products, they can make some more expensive, others cheaper; on average, everybody pays more. A high barrier to entry might help such practices. That doesn't mean I'm saying this is what is happen…

> Why not ask the same ridiculous amount of money your competitors do? People seem to be paying for it. Their fault. That's not how commodity markets work. This stuff is essentially sold at auction with the price set by supply and demand. The way they would fix the price is by constraining supply so that people have to outbid each other on a smaller amount of inventory. But that's not that hard to measure -- are they…

> but that they're not increasing it fast enough

That also isn't illegal. A business can choose to artificially restrict supply if they want, there's no mandate that they must meet demand.

It only crosses into illegal territory if multiple companies get together and secretly agree to cap production to keep prices high. Then it becomes collusion. It also becomes illegal if there's a monopoly power that is intentionally constricting supply to specifically stop a smaller competitor or lock them out of the market.

The hard part is how do you prove Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron are acting as a unified cartel when there obviously isn't going to be a paper trail for secret meetings.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#137

Post by thewebguyd » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 7:56 PM UTC

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #10

Neywiny wrote: post #7

HBM is also DRAM. I also think it's kind of a weak argument to say that them discontinuing ddr3 (which while in use still today in industrial/embedded was on the way out for consumers 10 years ago) and ddr4 which last had consumer CPUs for it 3 years ago is meaningful. What we need now is ddr5. Turning off the old fabs and moving those resources including people to ddr5 is a good thing. That's not price fixing. It's…

Switching off DDR3 manufacturing I can understand, but DDR4 machines are still quite relevant and usable… Ryzen 5000 series boxes for example don’t feel meaningfully weaker than they did when new. My 5950X tower certainly doesn’t, and it’d really be nice to be able to upgrade its RAM should I need to because it will continue to be useful for quite some time. AMD just re-released their 5800X3D for AM4 board users who…

> My 5950X tower certainly doesn’t

That's what I have in my gaming tower, and yeah I feel zero pressing need to upgrade. I did manage to put 64GB of DDR4 in it just before prices went totally bonkers, thankfully. Where I'm falling behind is my GPU I'm still on an nvidia 1660 super, but I just can't justify paying what they cost right now.

I would gain pretty much nothing moving to a newer board w/ DDR5.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#138

Post by Danox » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 7:58 PM UTC

xiphias2 wrote: post #5

,,The plaintiffs claimed the three companies reduced D-RAM supply under the pretext of transitioning to high-bandwidth memory (HBM). "The D-RAM oligopoly companies systematically coordinated the shift to HBM and the discontinuation of DDR3 and DDR4," they said. They added that Apple's recent sweeping product price increases were the trigger for the lawsuit.'' How can they do price fixing and discontinuing a product a…

People have a tendency to get upset when someone waves a future IOU intent order from another buyer in front of you, one that isn’t taking delivery anytime soon and then proceeds to tell you you must pay more…

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#139

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 8:08 PM UTC

Stitch4223 wrote: post #112

mywittyname wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have to decide what part is damaging to society: the actual physical agreement, or the effects of the agreement? If it's the actual physical agreement that's the problem - the system is working as intended. But if we are looking to prevent the negative outcomes associated with price fixing and collusion, our system is failing us. They are never going to find proof of conspiracy. The people involved covered their t…

You'll have to create a case that harm is taking place. Harm does not mean a PlayStation 5 is now $200 more expensive or that inflation exists. I would look at questions regarding what harm is created: Is it discriminatory? Are parts of society shutting down, and is that unreasonable? Are groups of people now unable to afford a living? Does it move the poverty line? Is that permanent? And how do you prove this is exc…

> You'll have to create a case that harm is taking place. Harm does not mean a PlayStation 5 is now $200 more expensive or that inflation exists.

"Things cost more because of collusion" is always a harm. It doesn't matter if the product is maize or gold-plated haute couture, competitors are supposed to compete.

The question is, what's the best way to tell the difference between tacit collusion and just normal supply and demand?

It's not that easy, but here's a decent test: It's tacit conclusion if 1) net margins have been high for e.g. 3 years and 2) no new companies have entered the market in that period of time, or were acquired by an incumbent if they did.

Notice that this works for everything. Even if you're making luxury goods, the price may be high, but so are production costs, and there is a lower volume to amortize fixed costs over, so long-term net margins should be the same as they are anywhere else or you should see new entrants. If you don't, it's reasonable to infer collusion and leave it on the companies to prove otherwise.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#140

Post by mNovak » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 8:11 PM UTC

w10-1 wrote: post #103

dumb peripheral question: memory as a circuit would seems easy to add directly on-chip for a company like Apple. Is that blocked by time-frame, IP, technology, cost?

Logic gates and memory bits have very different fabrication processes (mostly because DRAM is optimized for a high density of big capacitors doing the storage).

You can put some memory on the logic wafer (SRAM) but it's area inefficient, which is wasteful on your expensive N2 wafer. So a dedicated DRAM process is vastly cheaper per bit, even at current elevated prices.