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]
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
Foxcon wisconsin… Literally right freaking there just put it there there’s nothing stopping anyone …and pedantics aside its already paid for!
The Foxconn deal fell through. IIRC, Microsoft datacenters are in there now.
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.
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
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.