01. DDR4 Shortage May Last Until 2027
On Nov 6, Winbond warned that the three leading DRAM makers are shifting advanced capacity to DDR5 and HBM, so the structural shortage of DDR4 could drag on until 2027. President Chen Pei-ming noted that fabs below 14 nm cannot cost-effectively make DDR3/DDR4 without ECC, and JEDEC rules bar adding ECC, forcing priority to DDR5 and leaving DDR4 supply gaps unfilled. Winbond’s 20 nm DDR4 output doubled Q-o-Q in Q3 and will keep climbing in Q4; customers are chasing multi-year LTA contracts, and the company expects Q4 revenue, shipments, and ASP to keep rising.
02. TrendForce: Memory Prices Spiral Out of Control – DDR5 Chip Spot Price Jumps 30% in One Week
On Nov 6, TrendForce reported global memory chips in the steepest rally on record. DRAM: upstream capacity is tight and module houses such as Kingston are holding back shipments, triggering hoarding, lifting DDR5 chip spot quotes 30% in a week and DDR4 chips 11.6%. NAND: supplier reluctance pushed 512 Gb TLC wafer spot up 14.2%. Supply strain will persist short term, prompting buyers to stock early.
03. SK hynix, Nvidia Seal HBM4 Price Hike
Nov 5 – Shanghai Securities News: SK hynix and Nvidia have locked next-year HBM4 pricing at ~US$560, up >50% vs. HBM3E and 10% above street expectations. The stack will power Nvidia’s Rubin AI GPU; SK Hynix has already pre-sold all 2025 output. The vendor sees HBM revenue rising 40-50% next year and operating profit topping KRW 70 trillion, an all-time high.
04. Nexperia BV Updates Global Ops & China Supply Chain
Nov 6 – Nexperia B.V. briefed on worldwide operations. The U.S. “Tied Company Rule” is paused for one year, easing export-control fallout; China also supports resuming exports from its Chinese fab, but procedures remain unclear. Because the Chinese plant’s governance has drifted, Nexperia halted direct wafer shipments to it at the end of October and is qualifying an alternate supply. European and other Asian plants run normally, shipping compliant product. A Dutch enterprise court has placed Wingtech’s voting rights under an independent administrator; Nexperia continues to follow Dutch government directives, safeguarding European output and seeking approval for strategic moves.
05. Memory OSAT's Plot Double-Digit Price Hikes – Powertech, ChipMOS, SPIL Swamped
Nov 4 – AI training & inference demand has HBM and DDR5 sold out, keeping OSAT utilization sky-high. Industry sources say another round of increases, high-single to double-digit, will kick in by year-end and last into 2025. · Powertech: DRAM driven by both AI and non-AI server upgrades; NAND stays strong on phone refresh cycles and data-center SSD demand—orders “no off-season” through Q1 2025. · ChipMOS: DDR5 packaging projects already upsized by U.S. and domestic customers; niche DRAM also rising; full-year revenue seen up double-digit; DDR4 still ~70% of DRAM biz but DDR5 share keeps climbing. · Huatai: secured new DDR5 and LPDDR5x test orders, operation bottoming out. Consensus: AI & data-center build-outs run at least to 2026; memory OSATs remain a key AI-supply-chain growth story.
06. Foxconn Teams With SoftBank, Mitsubishi to Launch Japan “Sovereign AI” Production
Nov 7 – Economic Daily: Chairman Liu Young Way says Foxconn will convert Sharp’s Kameyama No. 2 plant (Mie Prefecture) into an AI-server base within a year, partnering with SoftBank and Mitsubishi Electric to build data centers that meet Tokyo’s “data-training-hardware-all-domestic” sovereign-AI mandate. Separately, Foxconn will deploy humanoid robots at its Texas plant within six months to build AI servers. Over the next three years, North America remains the largest AI-server capacity hub; capex prioritizes North America, Japan, and Taiwan, while Vietnam and India expansions slip in sequence.