cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/24313827
Seriously, what the fuck is going on with fabs right now?
Micron has found a way to add new DRAM manufacturing capacity in a hurry by acquiring a chipmaking campus from Taiwanese outfit Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC).
The two companies announced the deal last weekend. Micron’s version of events says it’s signed a letter of intent to acquire Powerchip’s entire P5 site in Tongluo, Taiwan, for total cash consideration of US$1.8 billion.
Hope AI collapses and we get an oversupply
To copy my comment on the beehaw.org post, because they and lemmy.world aren’t federated:
This deal may make matters worse for more buyers, because PSMC used the Tongluo site to make legacy DRAM products – the kind of memory used in less advanced products. With the company now exiting the legacy chip biz, that memory will also become more scarce, giving the laws of supply and demand another moment in which to work their way on markets.
PSMC’s current DRAM capacity mainly relies on 25nm and 38nm nodes, which restricts DDR4 production to lower-density products.
I guess that that’s more DDR4 supply drying up. It’s going to be some very scarce years for memory until enough new production comes online.
EDIT:
https://tech.yahoo.com/computing/articles/amd-ryzen-chief-teases-return-201223682.html
AMD Ryzen chief teases return of older Zen 3 chips to fight soaring RAM prices — ‘That’s something we’re actively working on right now’
Restarting production of DDR4-capable hardware isn’t going to help nearly as much if nobody is producing DDR4. I guess that there’s still DDR4 memory to scavenge from existing computers.
EDIT2:
As RAM crisis intensifies, DDR3 motherboards are making an improbable comeback
Here’s one way to avoid paying an absolute fortune for RAM - forget DDR5 or even DDR4 memory, switch back to DDR3, as some folks are doing in China.
Now I regret throwing out the DDR3 memory that I have in the past.
Honestly I inherited an old Poweredge server and everything in it is dirt cheap. Like I can find RAM <1€/GB
One more thought — I don’t think that, even if someone is willing to do so as a stopgap until memory production ramps up adequately, that it’s possible to run Windows 11 on a DDR3-based system. DDR4 came out 12 years ago.
Not being able to run ai spyware 11 sounds like a big entry in the plus column to me 😅
Not officially, you have to hack the installer to skip TPM and secure boot checks
All those people saying that swap was useless must be feeling quite silly nowadays.
So does anyone know, is it hard to make RAM?
rams into someguy3
No.
The dirty stuff not so much but if you want it clean and pure yeah
Be careful where you buy it, some DIY lithographers will cut it with ROMs.
