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why is there a shortage of supply for GDDR Memory
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Master_shake_
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cellphones and greed i imagine.
jeremyshaw
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Most likely switching over to more profitable markets. Server memory is Samsung's excuse. I don't know what Micron is doing for GDDR5X.
Shintai
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Server memory usage increased since SKL-SP started shipping last year. (Also why DDR4 prices doubled)
Samsung for example moved from 12% to 27% of their entire production just for server memory.
And it takes time to build new fabs.
So the memory makers will prioritize products that makes more money. If server memory makes more money than GDDR, then GDDR capacity will be moved and price increases on existing supply.
Samsung for example moved from 12% to 27% of their entire production just for server memory.
And it takes time to build new fabs.
So the memory makers will prioritize products that makes more money. If server memory makes more money than GDDR, then GDDR capacity will be moved and price increases on existing supply.
limitedaccess
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You need to think of memory as one large supply pool almost. GDDR5 production is really isolated by itself, it needs to fight with all other types of memory for existing capacity.
Demand is higher due to several cyclical reasons. One of which is the consumer electronics season. The other longer cyclical is mobile devices are transitioning to higher memory counts (PC enthusiasts making fun of Apple sticking with 1GB for so long beware what you sow
).
Bit rate production has not increased as much due to process scaling delays. The transition to 1x nm processes for memory is behind schedule basically. Process issues are likely also compounding supply for enthusiasts as they are looking to higher speed parts. Both DDR4 and post GDDR5 memory have actually lagged behind the set speed standards in terms of whats producible in mass volume. DDR4 for example only has DDR4-2666 in mass production even though its been defined up to 3200. The memory you buy at those higher speeds are just aggressively binned.
Existing fabs also are hedging against the potential impact of China entering the market and so are reluctant to scale up volume. China has looked to use memory as its push for its own homegrown semi-conductor industry. The denied 23 billion Micron sale for example? That group has now invested 30 billion into a home grown effort instead. That among other projects would make your incumbents reluctant to invest their own billions now to compete when those efforts come online due to the severe market impact.
Demand is higher due to several cyclical reasons. One of which is the consumer electronics season. The other longer cyclical is mobile devices are transitioning to higher memory counts (PC enthusiasts making fun of Apple sticking with 1GB for so long beware what you sow
).Bit rate production has not increased as much due to process scaling delays. The transition to 1x nm processes for memory is behind schedule basically. Process issues are likely also compounding supply for enthusiasts as they are looking to higher speed parts. Both DDR4 and post GDDR5 memory have actually lagged behind the set speed standards in terms of whats producible in mass volume. DDR4 for example only has DDR4-2666 in mass production even though its been defined up to 3200. The memory you buy at those higher speeds are just aggressively binned.
Existing fabs also are hedging against the potential impact of China entering the market and so are reluctant to scale up volume. China has looked to use memory as its push for its own homegrown semi-conductor industry. The denied 23 billion Micron sale for example? That group has now invested 30 billion into a home grown effort instead. That among other projects would make your incumbents reluctant to invest their own billions now to compete when those efforts come online due to the severe market impact.
defaultluser
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Don't blame that on servers, that doubling of DDR4 price happened a year ago, about one year after the release of Skylake, and two years after Haswell-E had introduced it on the server side.
It was entirely caused by the major cell pone makers switching to DDR4 in 2015, including Apple with the iPhone 6s, and Samsung with the S6 and S7 (and soon after all the other high-end Android phones followed). The costs grew slowly, but it doubled the price by summer 2016.
It's mostly the same reason why flash chips are so overpriced. Because there's suddenly a storage and memory war driven by a rise in cellphone prices. All for parts you'll probably never use, but people over-budget for anyway.
Why buy the crappy 32GB/64GB flash model, when you can guarantee unlimited storage for only two hundred more? The number of high-end PCs with SSDs is paltry by comparison.
Man, iPhone X is expected to START at $1000! People just don't seem to understand the larger effects of dropping insane amounts of money on their fashion accessory that just happens to be in a spec war.
That combined with the still-rising 3rd-world cell phone sales means there's not enough supply to meet demand at all performance levels.
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