1. Factory limits basically. There's a limit to the amount of fabrication lines that can create ram. Combined with the market incentives right now to make high bandwidth memory (HBM) over server memory (DRAM)... HBM starts as DRAM dies, so it competes with normal DRAM for wafer starts / cleanroom fab capacity.
reply2. Eventually more plants will come on line. Most of the main manufacturers have announced expansions but these can take O(years) to come online.
The entire capacity of RAM production is basically booked out, for at least the next year. All fabs have sold their allocations already, and it takes years to build a new one. As a result, no it will likely not ease up if demand continues like this, again for at least a year.
replyAlso worth noting:
replyThey sold their allocations to people who don't have a clear path to profitability, and were paid with massive amounts of money that don't exist in reality.
> and were paid with massive amounts of money that don't exist in reality
replyHow's that possible?
> 1. What's the bottleneck in ramping up RAM production? Is it the availability of silicon itself? Or the factories are at capacity?
replyFor a RAM manufacturer, the incentive is to ramp up production AND prices. I doubt any of the names in the business is doing any work at all to lower their unit prices.
The current pricing isn't sustainable, and if you try to wring out the maximum amount of profit, you're gonna have competition spring up. The Chinese are probably salivating at this opportunity. Previously they would've had to sell memory at discount rates to get anyone to switch over to them, but now they'd have customers lined up for years if they were selling at the prices Samsung/Micron/SK Hynix were selling a year ago.
replyMeet the new memory cartel, it's just like the old memory cartel but with CXMT being priced a tiny tad below.
replySafe to say they're not in it out of sheer altruism.