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

arstechnica.com

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

#171

Post by [deleted] »

nirui wrote: post #151
malshe wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In this market, CXMT is more likely to also move to HBM production rather than consumer grade RAMs. After all China is also doing an AI push in a competition with the US, and the domestic Chinese companies are "recommended/guided" by the government to help, while consumers are pushed to lower priorities. The situation I'm worrying about is that these PC manufacturers could use this opportunity to push for a more lock…

[deleted]

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

#172

Post by joe_mamba »

Animats wrote: post #170
joe_mamba wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Modern RAM is made in fabs, which are ridiculously expensive to manufacture. Modern EUV lithography machines cost around 500M each. They're manufactured by hand. Only one company in the world knows how to manufacture them right now. You're wrong here. You don't need the most cutting edge ASML EUV machines to make RAM. Most RAM fabs still use standard DUV.

> You're wrong here. You don't need the most cutting edge ASML EUV machines to make RAM. Most RAM fabs still use standard DUV. Ah. Please check that. Which types of DRAM can be made in a DUV fab? Obviously the older ones, but are those obsolete for new computers. This really matters.

DDR4 and basic HBM is still in high demand right now and that was made before the first EUV fabs came online.

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

#173

Post by u_sama »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #38
trollbridge wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t the EU have an excellent education system?

> Doesn’t the EU have an excellent education system? Excellent universities, overall. But results from primary and secondary schools are nose diving at a more than alarming rate in several EU countries. Literacy rates are falling, math grades are falling. There's IMO only so much time before universities begin to be affected as well.

It is a general phenomenon across the Western developped world, here is the account of a professor which went viral a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43522966

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

#174

Post by chii »

josephg wrote: post #150
briansm wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economies die from lack of produce though.

When the internet boom happened, computers had a tiny fraction of the RAM they have today. Everything worked fine. Programmers had to make efficient programs. But we were fine with that. We just programmed in C and C++ and shipped small binaries, because what choice did we have? Nobody tried to build desktop software in javascript on top of electron. And nobody built web servers in python. If all consumer devices onl…

> But nobody would really care.

no, you should say that you personally wouldn't care, but that does not generalize.

People do care, just like people prefer eating better food than just bread and milk. And after having had a taste of the good stuff, people do not want to revert - loss aversion is real.

So if consumer devices regressed back to only having 1gb of ram, they will feel the loss, and they will complain if nothing else. The world of lean, efficient software that require little ram will not return. Programmers (read:companies selling products) will not adapt, but instead, the requirements for computing will become more exclusionary to those with the means.

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

#176

Post by TrackerFF »

blackoil wrote: post #24

Maybe this RAMmageddon will trigger a wave of optimized softwares that don't need GBs of memory for anything and everything.

Let's see.

A) Programmers will get their shit together and start shipping lean software.

OR

B) New laptops will become neutered thin clients, and all the heavy lifting will be done by cloud service providers.

Which one seems more likely?

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

#177

Post by [deleted] »

cwbriscoe wrote: post #98
danny_codes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You must not have heard, Biden is no longer president.

[deleted]

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

#178

Post by joe_mamba »

phoronixrly wrote: post #119
Gigachad wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

It's been a headscratcher for me... The EU and the US have an issue with CCP-subsidised tech giants, but their sole reaction is banning them in some form or other? In the EU it is from public tenders, in the US it's from dealing with US companies. This does not really help EU and US businesses to be competitive though, neither does it stop consumers going for the cheapest option...

>The EU and the US have an issue with CCP-subsidised tech giants

Except EU and US tech giants also get massive government subsidies making such accusations hypocritical. Silicon Valley has its roots in cold war defense funding.

What the US and EU don't like it that China has beaten them at their own game using their own rules, so now they need to move the goalposts on why we shouldn't buy Chinese RAM and protect western DRAM monopolies making amazing margins.

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

#179

Post by joe_mamba »

kgeist wrote: post #56
nine_k wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

ASML doesn't make chips, they make the machines.

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

#180

Post by lucianbr »

joe_mamba wrote: post #162
orthoxerox wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only one company in the world knows how to manufacture them right now. And that company is in Europe, isn't it? The EU has a great opportunity to enter the market: it's a high-tech manufacturing job, not something that requires lots of cheap labor.

> The EU has a great opportunity to enter the market: You can't just get into RAM manufacturing overnight whenever you feel like it, like you're building washing machines. You need a lot more than just ASML machines, you need the supply chain, the IP, the experienced professionals with know-how, the education system, the energy, the right regulations, etc. The EU exited the RAM manufacturing business a long time ago…

> nobody can guarantee it won't be again

I hope we (Europe) can try some things even when they are not guaranteed to succeed and generate huge profits. Otherwise we are toast, though it might take some time to realise it.

The concept of trying not-guaranteed things should not be so alien here on news.ycombinator.com I would think.

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