They are running fabs at 100% capacity. New fabs take many years to build, cost billions, and are out of date within a few process moves.
One cannot simply "flood the market" or the Chinese would have done it ages ago.
They are running fabs at 100% capacity. New fabs take many years to build, cost billions, and are out of date within a few process moves.
One cannot simply "flood the market" or the Chinese would have done it ages ago.
> and are out of date within a few process moves.
The fabs themselves (especially for memory) are being retooled for process moves. At least that's what micron has been doing.
But otherwise I agree. Micron has a new fab being built that was started around 2020. It's nowhere near finished.
The Chinese memory makers have been sabotaged by USA, otherwise they would have already "flooded the market" and reduced the prices.
Even so, the production of cheaper Chinese DDR5 memory is increasing despite not being able to import all the tools and materials that are needed, so eventually they will benefit from this memory shortage that allows them to gain market share that they would not have gained otherwise.
I'd like to learn more about how they've been sabotaged. What happened?
Google US semiconductor sanctions on China. Basically US (and allies pressed by US) aren't allowed to export their most cutting edge semiconductor tools and materials to China, so China can only make chips using older-gen tools on older process nodes than western-aligned competitors.
The other part of the sabotage is that western companies then have restrictions on what chips they're allowed to buy from China. IDK if RAM chips are also on that list.