(Angel Garcia/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
A leading DRAM supplier says the ongoing memory shortage could actually last beyond 2028 and persist into 2030.
Analysts previously projected the memory crunch might last for about two years, pointing to new fabs eventually coming online. But the chairman for the Korean semiconductor maker SK Hynix expects the shortage to likely last for four or five years, according to Reuters.
SK Hynix’s chairman, Chey Tae-won, gave the dire view on the sidelines during Nvidia’s GTC event in San Jose, California. According to him, the industry is also facing a shortage of wafers, the foundational base that chips are built on.
“So we need some time to build up more wafers, at least four to five years. The current shortage could continue until 2030, so we expect more than a 20% shortage of the wafers," Chey reportedly said.
The shortage has been traced to companies chasing AI and building next-generation data centers containing GPUs packed with huge amounts of High Bandwidth Memory or HBM. The problem is that HBM requires “a lot of wafers,” according to Chey. In the meantime, SK Hynix is developing a strategy to stabilize soaring DRAM prices, which have ensnared consumer DDR5 and DDR4 RAM.
The news is a scary sign for the consumer electronics industry. The shortage has already been causing price hikes and delaying new products, including Valve’s Steam Machine and reportedly new Nvidia graphics cards. The situation is so bad that research firms are predicting both the smartphone and PC industry will experience around a 10% decrease in shipments during 2026 due to the rising component costs sapping demand and production.