The big three's pivot to HBM is draining commodity DRAM capacity, so the shortage and rising DDR4 prices are lifting margins at Taiwan's legacy makers.
Each one is a statement that has to be true. When a filing says otherwise, the thesis is in trouble, and this is where we say so.
Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron publish no announcement reversing, extending or postponing their DDR3/DDR4 end-of-life and legacy-node shutdown plans before 6 January 2027.
DDR4 contract prices quoted for December 2026 are at or above their August 2026 level, rather than falling back toward the pre-shortage 2025 range.
Nanya Technology reports a consolidated gross margin above 15% in its Q3 2026 quarterly result and above 15% again in its Q4 2026 result.
CXMT brings no new DRAM fab or expansion phase online before 6 January 2027 that adds more than 50,000 wafer starts per month of DDR4/DDR5 capacity.
Winbond reports monthly revenue at least 15% above the year-earlier month in at least three of the months from September 2026 through January 2027.
Every HBM stack, the heart of AI accelerators, is far less dense than a commodity DRAM die: the same bit capacity takes up nearly three times the silicon area, because you add logic layers, TSV interconnects and worse yields. The upshot is that as Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron redirect more and more wafer capacity to HBM and to the newest DDR5, a disproportionately large chunk of commodity memory supply disappears from the market.
Interactive causal map, the basket charted against its market, and the full timeline.
Open in Invesaro →This is analysis, not investment advice and not a recommendation to buy or sell anything. We publish it and track it in public, mistakes included. Any decision is yours and yours alone.