A report by The Information claims that the world’s biggest chipmaker is considering adding memory back into its portfolio, starting with next-generation 3D DRAM. With demand still outpacing supply and prices sky-high, the outlet says it could compete with memory giants Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix to develop and produce 3D DRAM technology that stacks chips vertically for increased bandwidth, capacity, and power efficiency. [Link: TSMC Weighs Making Advanced Memory Chips to Capture More AI Spending | https://www.theinformation.com/articles/tsmc-weighs-making-advanced-memory-chips-capture-ai-spending?rc=v4bmzs | The Information]
  • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    111·
    15 hours ago

    What’s stopping an American RAM plant? I would think we would have already broke ground.

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      13·
      8 hours ago

      Americans do crazy things like not tolerating 24 hour shifts and being required to sleep in a dormitory owned by the employer.

    • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      82·
      7 hours ago

      Who’s gonna pay for it? A ram fab costs hundreds of billions and takes years to get online, then takes tens of billions every year to constantly upgrade to new standards. And all that for a commodity that while right now is obnoxiously expensive is typically a razor thin margin and sometimes even sold at a loss

      • this_1_is_mine@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        5 hours ago

        Foxcon wisconsin… Literally right freaking there just put it there there’s nothing stopping anyone …and pedantics aside its already paid for!

      • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        5 hours ago

        Who’s gonna pay for it?

        Intel already has fabs. Ram is currently 3x more expensive per unit area than high end CPU’s. So just like Samsung make ram and ARM cpus at the same fabs, Intel could have some of its foundary make dram for 3x the profit of CPUs.

        There’s no point in making so many CPU’s when there’s no DRAM to go with them.

        • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          3·
          2 hours ago

          Those fabs would need to be retooled. So intel spends billions, butchers their ability to fabricate their core product line, and all so that they can now fabricate a deprecating asset. By the time they got up and running ram prices would be about to drop significantly as 2028 has Samsung, micron, and sk Hynix all opening expanded fabrication capacity. Not to mention if the 3 main ram manufacturers take ~2 years to get additional capacity online god only knows how long it would take for someone who hasn’t fucked with dram manufacturing since like the 80s

      • jfrnz@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        6 hours ago

        If you’re spending hundreds of billions on a DRAM fab, you’re overpaying. Check Facebook Marketplace, you shouldn’t have to spend more than $25B to get what you’re looking for.

    • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
      14·
      14 hours ago

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micron_Technology

      Micron Technology, Inc. is an American multinational semiconductor company that manufactures computer memory and computer data storage products, including dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), flash memory, High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), and solid-state drives (SSDs). Founded in 1978 in Boise, Idaho, Micron is the only major American computer memory manufacturer.[3] It is one of the “Big Three” computer memory manufacturers, along with the South Korean companies Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.[4]

      They have fabs in the US (and are building more).

      https://www.micron.com/us-expansion/

      Micron is accelerating its U.S. fab and technology investments, increasing its planned spend to more than $250 billion through 2035, driven by surging demand for memory in the AI era. These investments reflect Micron’s confidence in its technology leadership and are designed to support its long-term goal of producing 40% of its DRAM in the U.S. while creating additional good-paying jobs.

        • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
          4·
          6 hours ago

          Sure thing. If you’ve ever purchased Crucial memory, that’s their “consumer” brand, where they make the DIMMs themselves, so you’ll have some of their memory chips. There was a lot of outrage on here that they stopped doing that during the RAM shortage, prioritized filling B2B demand first.

          There are also third-party DIMM manufacturers like PNY (also US-based) that make DIMMs with chips from memory chip manufacturers, and they might be using Micron memory chips as well.

          If you’re on Linux, you can check what’s in your system at the DIMM level without pulling it open with:

          $ sudo dmidecode -t memory

          I don’t know if there’s a way to see where the chips on a third-party DIMM come from — like, potentially Micron, with a third-party manufacturer — without actually looking at the chip.

      • stormeuh@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        11 hours ago

        In 2002, the United States Department of Justice began a probe into the activities of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) manufacturers in response to complaints by US computer makers, including Dell and Gateway. The computer makers said that inflated DRAM pricing was causing them lost profits and hindering their effectiveness in the marketplace, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

        To date, five manufacturers have pleaded guilty to their involvement in an international price-fixing conspiracy between July 1, 1998, and June 15, 2002, including Hynix, Infineon, Micron Technology, Samsung, and Elpida.

        They have also plead guilty to price fixing. Device information