Here's why HBM is coming for your PC's RAM ā HBM consumes around three times the wafer capacity of DDR5 per gigabyte, as AI supercharges demand for chips and advanced packaging
ā” Quick Hits
- AI's growth is reshaping the DRAM and NAND landscape.
- HBM production consumes significantly more wafer capacity than DDR5.
- Consumer memory prices are rising due to resource competition.
HBM Demand Surge Impacts PC RAM Market
The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having a ripple effect across the semiconductor industry, particularly in the DRAM and NAND memory sectors. Specifically, the insatiable appetite of AI applications for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) is causing a significant shift in wafer capacity and advanced packaging resources, diverting them away from consumer-grade products.
This diversion has a direct impact on the availability and pricing of traditional memory solutions used in PCs, such as DDR5 RAM. HBM, while offering superior bandwidth for AI workloads, consumes approximately three times the wafer capacity of DDR5 per gigabyte. As AI continues its rapid expansion, this imbalance is likely to worsen, potentially leading to sustained price increases in the consumer memory market.