HBM takes a bigger share
High-bandwidth memory is expected to take close to 30% of DRAM makers' total wafer capacity in 2027, up from roughly 20% now, as suppliers shift lines toward chips used in AI accelerators. Samsung is accelerating new memory capacity as both HBM and conventional DRAM stay tight. SK Hynix said on 28 September that it has validated its HBM5 memory with TSMC's CoWoS packaging, even as HBM4 is only now being built into Nvidia's next platform.
Prices feed into the wider economy
The squeeze is showing up in trade data. Chips made up nearly half of South Korea's exports in September, and China and Hong Kong accounted for 52% of those shipments. Component suppliers are under pressure as memory prices climb, with finished-goods makers asking for price cuts of 10% to 20% from the third quarter of 2026 while Chinese competitors bid 20% to 30% lower.
Morgan Stanley analysts have grouped the rise under the label chipflation, arguing it has become a macroeconomic concern rather than only a technology story. Higher memory costs eventually reach laptops, phones, servers and cars, where the memory content per unit keeps growing.
Investment follows the shortage
China's ChangXin Memory Technologies plans to spend CNY34.9 billion, about US$5.2 billion, on research and extra back-end DRAM testing capacity. Samsung has reshuffled its DRAM roadmap, moving its B1b wafer-to-wafer hybrid bonding technology to the centre of its first sub-10nm DRAM generation. Micron launched a US$250 million venture fund alongside more than US$25 billion in fiscal 2026 capital spending, and SK Hynix's Solidigm unit is weighing a US listing that reports value at up to US$150 billion.
Analysts expect supply to stay tight into 2027 while AI data-centre demand grows. The risk is that heavy spending on new fabs lands just as demand cools, repeating a cycle the memory industry knows well.
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