DDR4 prices have been steadily increasing in the past months due to the lack of supply. Top DRAM manufacturers Micron, Samsung, and SK hynix have announced earlier this year that they’re ceasing production of DDR4 memory by the end of 2025, with CXMT, China’s largest memory manufacturer, following suit in May. Because of this, pricing for DDR4 chips has tripled in just two months, with ComputerBase [machine translated] reporting that 8GB DDR4-3200 chip pricing is going over $5 (versus $1.75 at the end of April). The double pack variant of this DDR4 memory module now has an average price of $8.80, rising by more than 100% from $3.57. Because of this, a few smaller players have realized DDR4 is profitable once again and have decided to extend production.
For example, Taiwan-based memory maker Nanya, with its extensive DDR4 portfolio, is benefiting from these price jumps. This is especially true as it does not have LPDDR5 production and only has a limited DDR5 product line. On the other hand, bigger manufacturers like Micron are unlikely to jump on the bandwagon, especially as they’re allocating the freed-up factory lines on current and upcoming technologies, like DDR5 and HBM.
A few DDR4 module prices have lowered slightly, owing to this news. But pricing remains generally high at the moment, especially as buyers are probably still stocking up on DDR4 memory chips in anticipation of production end. We expect pricing to normalize once smaller manufacturers have gone back up to speed with producing them, but it will likely take time for them to go back to their original levels.
JEDEC first officially introduced the DDR5 standard in 2020, meaning the technology has been around for around five years by now. Although Intel’s latest CPUs support both DDR4 and DDR5, AMD’s Zen 4 processors and up now only support DDR5. Aside from that, the AI boom is turning the massive demand for HBM chips into a lucrative market, pushing major players to migrate their old DDR4 lines for HBM production. These developments are slowly but surely pushing DDR4 out of the market, but because of the number of older technologies that still use it, it will likely be some time before we truly see the end of this technology.
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