A global shortage of memory chips is likely to persist another four to five years because of endemic constraints in semiconductor production, SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won said on Monday.
Leading players such as SK Hynix Inc are expanding capacity but they’re unlikely to fully sate demand till around 2030, said Chey, whose company controls the chipmaker. Industry-wide, supply of the basic wafers that get made into chips are lagging demand by more than 20 percent, Chey told reporters on the sidelines of Nvidia Corp’s GTC event in San Jose, California.
SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics Co and Micron Technology Inc together dominate the supply of memory chips globally. The three have shifted production in recent years toward a specialized form of memory intended for use in Nvidia’s in-demand artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators, leading to a shortfall in output of more conventional storage.
Photo: Fred Greaves, Reuters
That deficit is beginning to hammer profits, derail corporate plans and inflate price tags on everything from laptops and smartphones to cars and data centers — and many expect the crunch to worsen before it improves. SK Hynix is preparing to outline measures to help stabilize prices, Chey added, without elaborating.
SK Hynix is still considering a listing of American depositary receipts, Chey said in remarks to reporters in California provided by a company spokesperson. Such a move seen as a way to narrow the valuation gap with global peers such as Micron.
SK Hynix’s shares rose as much as 3.7 percent in Seoul yesterday. Samsung stock also climbed after Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said at the same event the South Korean chipmaker will make a Groq Inc-based AI inference processor, using its 4-nanometer technology.
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) share of the global foundry market rose to almost 70 percent last year amid booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI), market information advisory firm TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said on Thursday. The contract chipmaker posted US$122.54 billion in revenue, up 36.1 percent from a year earlier, accounting for 69.9 percent of the global market, TrendForce said. Its share was up from 64.4 percent in 2024, it said. TSMC’s closest rival, Samsung Electronics, was a distant second, posting US$12.63 billion in sales, down 3.9 percent from a year earlier, for a 7.2 percent share of the global market. In the
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
RSS