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.

  • tal@lemmy.todayOPEnglish
    23·
    5 hours ago

    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.

    https://www.dqindia.com/esdm/microns-acquisition-of-psmcs-tongluo-fab-could-lift-global-dram-supply-outlook-in-2027-11012307

    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:

    https://www.tweaktown.com/news/109702/as-ram-crisis-intensifies-ddr3-motherboards-are-making-an-improbable-comeback/index.html

    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.

    • tal@lemmy.todayOPEnglish
      2·
      11 hours ago

      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.

      • GMac@feddit.orgEnglish
        5·
        7 hours ago

        Not being able to run ai spyware 11 sounds like a big entry in the plus column to me 😅

    • tal@lemmy.todayOPEnglish
      4·
      9 hours ago

      I’m not really a hardware person, but purely in terms of logic gates, making a memory circuit isn’t going to be hard. I mean, a lot of chips contain internal memory. I’m sure that anyone that can fabricate a chip can fabricate someone’s memory design that contains some amount of memory.

      For PC use, there’s also going to be some interface hardware. Dunno how much sophistication is present there.

      I’m assuming that the catch is that it’s not trivial to go out and make something competitive with what the PC memory manufacturers are making in price, density, and speed. Like, I don’t think that if you want to get a microcontroller with 32 kB of onboard memory, that it’s going to be a problem. But that doesn’t really replace the kind of stuff that these guys are making.

      EDIT: The other big thing to keep in mind is that this is a short-term problem, even if it’s a big problem. I mean, the problem isn’t the supply of memory over the long term. The problem is the supply of memory over the next couple of years. You can’t just build a factory and hire a workforce and get production going the moment that someone decides that they want several times more memory than the world has been producing to date.

      So what’s interesting is really going to be solutions that can produce memory in the near term. Like, I have no doubt that given years of time, someone could set up a new memory manufacturer and facilities. But to get (scaled-up) production in a year, say? Fewer options there.

    • frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish
      3·
      11 hours ago

      I mean you can’t do it in your garage, but if you have the facility with the machines and the staff and the knowledge then yeah it’s not hard.

      There is actually a guy making CMOS transistors in his garage because he has some of the machines, but he can’t make them micro-sized and can’t make whole die sheets. (Also that’s transistors for processors, not memory, but they parallel.)