I really hope this puts an end to cheesy fires spiking memory prices. RAM/flash ram seems to be priced like oil, if there's a rumor of any production problems whatsoever there's always a huge increase in pricing.
the last "cheesy fire spiking memory prices" occurred in September 2000. Memory doubled in a very short period of time - in that case, it was a Taiwanese company that made all of the glue for the tops of memory chips. These oligopolies will always have problems like that - if company 1 goes out of production, company 2 cannot sustain the market.
Hard Drives - when WD had their factories in Thailand flood, Seagate was the only company left standing. What was hidden at the time was that WD bought HGST (Hitachi), and Seagate bought Samsung's HDD business. That leaves just WD, Seagate, and Toshiba as HDD makers - prices have been held high because of a lack of competition.
Memory - just Hynix, Samsung, Infineon (since bought), and Crucial make first tier RAM. Hynix is subsidized, and Infineon is out of the picture - so in reality, it is just Crucial and Hynix. The reason you have so few makers is that you have to look at the numbers in this article - $14.4 billion by Samsung, and $3.23 billion by Toshiba. It will take a lot of chips to make this back.
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plopke - Friday, March 25, 2016 - link
My factorio addiction and need for bigger cheap SSDs is screaming MORE MORE WE NEED MORE :P. !Pneumothorax - Sunday, March 27, 2016 - link
I really hope this puts an end to cheesy fires spiking memory prices. RAM/flash ram seems to be priced like oil, if there's a rumor of any production problems whatsoever there's always a huge increase in pricing.bug77 - Monday, March 28, 2016 - link
It won't. The industry will still rely on a handful of fabs, so it will remain just as sensitive.smilingcrow - Monday, March 28, 2016 - link
That happens because there is a spot market for RAM as with oil and commodity pricing is volatile.jbwhite99 - Monday, March 28, 2016 - link
the last "cheesy fire spiking memory prices" occurred in September 2000. Memory doubled in a very short period of time - in that case, it was a Taiwanese company that made all of the glue for the tops of memory chips. These oligopolies will always have problems like that - if company 1 goes out of production, company 2 cannot sustain the market.Hard Drives - when WD had their factories in Thailand flood, Seagate was the only company left standing. What was hidden at the time was that WD bought HGST (Hitachi), and Seagate bought Samsung's HDD business. That leaves just WD, Seagate, and Toshiba as HDD makers - prices have been held high because of a lack of competition.
Memory - just Hynix, Samsung, Infineon (since bought), and Crucial make first tier RAM. Hynix is subsidized, and Infineon is out of the picture - so in reality, it is just Crucial and Hynix. The reason you have so few makers is that you have to look at the numbers in this article - $14.4 billion by Samsung, and $3.23 billion by Toshiba. It will take a lot of chips to make this back.