Samsung and SK hynix abandon DDR3 production to focus on unrelenting demand for HBM3

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Jettisoning less profitable DDR3 production lines.

DDR3 memory on PCB
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Samsung and SK hynix are finally retiring their respective DDR3 production lines for good, according to reports from IT Home. The two Korean memory manufacturers will reportedly stop supplying DDR3 memory to the market by the second half of this year. Both companies are making this change in response to growing demand for AI-optimized HBM3 memory, so Samsung and SK hynix are focusing on more lucrative markets.

It is crazy to think that DDR3 is still around, but DDR3 is still used today for niche applications that don't require bleeding edge DDR5 or even DDR4 memory. These devices mostly include cheaper/less complex embedded applications, including Wi-Fi routers and switches.

Given the profit margins, it's no surprise Samsung and SK hynix are canceling DDR3 production in favor of DDR5 and HBM3 memory types. SK hynix has confirmed that HBM3 memory demand in particular is spiraling out of control thanks to the AI boom. SK hynix's HBM supply is reportedly sold out for 2024 and most of 2025, leading to a 5–10 percent price hike next year for all HBM (HBM2E, HBM3, and HBM3E) memory types. Samsung has yet to publish its HBM bookings but we expect the company to be in the same predicament.

The intense HBM demand is expected to more than double HBM's market share by 2025, going from 2% in 2023 to 5% in 2024 and then to 10% in 2025. Even DDR5 memory is being impacted by HBM demand and will reportedly see a 20% price hike, as the top three memory manufacturers shift manufacturing priority to HBM.

The server and PC markets have long since moved away from DDR3, which first launched in 2007. DDR4 has been around since 2014, with DDR5 arriving in 2020. It's no surprise then that Samsung and SK hynix are finally ready to remove DDR3 from their production lines completely. While DDR3 may still be used in certain devices, demand for DDR5 and HBM is much higher and more profitable, so they understandably have top priority.

That's not to say that DDR3 production will completely cease, even though Samsung and SK hynix are leaving that sector. Micron and Nanya continue to produce limited quantities of DDR3 memory. The exit of Samsung and SK hynix from the DDR3 market could help elevate DDR3 pricing as production tapers off. Even that will only go so far, as there's not enough demand for older memory types to keep them around. To that end, DDR3 pricing is expected to rise continuously but slowly until it gets phased out completely.

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Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Avro Arrow
    Why would they still be making DDR3 in the first place? Who still uses DDR3 and would want more? That RAM standard has been dead for nearly a decade.
    Reply
  • CParsons
    Avro Arrow said:
    Why would they still be making DDR3 in the first place? Who still uses DDR3 and would want more? That RAM standard has been dead for nearly a decade.
    Look at all the garbage routers and electronics on the market, as noted.

    It is crazy to think that DDR3 is still around, but DDR3 is still used today for niche applications that don't require bleeding edge DDR5 or even DDR4 memory. These devices mostly include cheaper/less complex embedded applications, including Wi-Fi routers and switches.
    Reply
  • palladin9479
    Avro Arrow said:
    Why would they still be making DDR3 in the first place? Who still uses DDR3 and would want more? That RAM standard has been dead for nearly a decade.

    You know, electronics other then personal computers need memory. Cheap DDR3 is used in many integrated systems where they just need a few chips worth. I bet your car's ECU has some sort of soldiered memory, likely DDR2 or DDR3 depending when it was manufactured.
    Reply
  • vern72
    Avro Arrow said:
    Why would they still be making DDR3 in the first place? Who still uses DDR3 and would want more? That RAM standard has been dead for nearly a decade.
    I recently bought four 16GB sticks for an old Xeon computer I use at work. Thank goodness I bought them when I did!
    Reply
  • ThomasKinsley
    Avro Arrow said:
    Why would they still be making DDR3 in the first place? Who still uses DDR3 and would want more? That RAM standard has been dead for nearly a decade.
    Non-gamers. I know someone still using an older 4th or 5th gen Intel i5. Other than the occasional hiccup, it just works.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    Avro Arrow said:
    Why would they still be making DDR3 in the first place? Who still uses DDR3 and would want more? That RAM standard has been dead for nearly a decade.
    Printers, routers, your car, your washing machine....
    Reply
  • dk382
    USAFRet said:
    Printers, routers, your car, your washing machine....
    Not to mention millions of aging office PCs that are still in service because they still run outlook and MS Office just fine.
    Reply
  • Notton
    I'm surprised they still make DDR3. Why would you not use DDR3L? I thought it is supposed to be a 1:1 drop-in upgrade to anything that uses it.
    I know some lower end SSDs still use DDR3L as cache.
    Reply
  • Avro Arrow
    CParsons said:
    Look at all the garbage routers and electronics on the market, as noted.
    palladin9479 said:
    You know, electronics other then personal computers need memory. Cheap DDR3 is used in many integrated systems where they just need a few chips worth. I bet your car's ECU has some sort of soldiered memory, likely DDR2 or DDR3 depending when it was manufactured.
    That's the funny thing though, RAM used to get MORE expensive the older it got, at least, that was the case when I worked at Tiger Direct. The cost of DDR was like double the price of (much faster) DDR2. Thus, I never expected that it would be considered cheap in other industries. Like, it makes total sense but for some reason, I guess that DDR was getting rare or something. That's why I was puzzled. I expected that the increased cost, power draw and slower speeds would've kept other sectors away from it. It made no sense that last-gen RAM cost more, but that's what was going on.
    vern72 said:
    I recently bought four 16GB sticks for an old Xeon computer I use at work. Thank goodness I bought them when I did!
    Yeah, no kidding, eh? How much RAM did it have before?
    ThomasKinsley said:
    Non-gamers. I know someone still using an older 4th or 5th gen Intel i5. Other than the occasional hiccup, it just works.
    Well, yeah, that much I know. I was just trying to think of who would want to buy more of it. Like, my mom's HTPC uses an FX-8350 on a 990FX motherboard but 8GB is more than enough for her purposes. I guess I just assumed that since it's so old, anyone with a PC that used it would've already bought all that they wanted of it. Kinda like me with my 64GB of DDR4-3600 (although that was by accident).
    USAFRet said:
    Printers, routers, your car, your washing machine....
    Yeah, I realise that now, I just expected that, when DDR4 came into vogue, DDR3's price would skyrocket the way that DDR did compared to DDR2 back in 2007-2008. It would appear that I was wrong and I'm kinda glad that I was because, to this day, seeing DDR costing literally double the price of DDR2 has always befuddled me.
    dk382 said:
    Not to mention millions of aging office PCs that are still in service because they still run outlook and MS Office just fine.
    Yeah, but those PCs probably have all the RAM that they're ever going to use already. I think that people pointing out the non-PC use-cases for DDR3 are probably right. It's not like the stuff really goes bad. My mom's HTPC is using 8GB of DDR3-2333 that I bought back in 2010-2011 in anticipation of Piledriver. It wasn't even a well-known brand, it was an off-brand called UMAX and the RAM itself was called Cetus. It was listed on eBay for about $50 less than 16GB would've cost me anywhere else so I grabbed it. I even knew back then that RAM was either made by Samsung, Hynix or Micron regardless of the "brand" showing on the RAM itself. Since I've never been a brand-wh0re, I just chose whatever gave me the best price and UMAX was definitely the one who did that. The stuff was kinda funny looking with its silver metal-finish but this was before the days of glass side panels (and RGB for that matter). All I care about was whether or not it did the job reliably from then until now, and it did.

    I found a picture of the kit I bought, I actually bought two of them:
    So, I had 16GB (considered a crap-tonne of RAM at the time) but about five years ago I used half of it to build a system for a friend of mine with an old i7-2600K and ASRock µATX motherboard that I had lying around (given to me by my stepfather in appreciation for steering him toward an R9-3900X system) with absolutely no use for. He was using an Athlon II X4 CPU but his board failed. To him, the i7-2600K was a major improvement in performance and since I had no use for it, I let him have it. I had the 16GB of DDR3-1333 just lying around so I gave him two sticks and I kept two sticks for my FX-8350 (which my mom now uses). I also have an old Acer craptop from 2012 with an AMD Llano A8-3500M that has 8GB of DDR3-1333 (the most it could take anyway) and it's still plugging away too.

    The longevity of RAM is pretty impressive when you think about it.
    Reply
  • palladin9479
    Avro Arrow said:
    That's the funny thing though, RAM used to get MORE expensive the older it got, at least, that was the case when I worked at Tiger Direct. The cost of DDR was like double the price of (much faster) DDR2. Thus, I never expected that it would be considered cheap in other industries. Like, it makes total sense but for some reason, I guess that DDR was getting rare or something. That's why I was puzzled. I expected that the increased cost, power draw and slower speeds would've kept other sectors away from it. It made no sense that last-gen RAM cost more, but that's what was going on.

    You are confusing DIMM's with DRAM, they are not the same thing. DIMM's get more expensive because there simply isn't enough demand for them to be produced in bulk and what you get is either what's still left in inventory or the ultra small quantities being produced. DRAM on the other hand is just the chips and they are still being produced in bulk because we are still talking batches of 100,000+. System builders then can choose to soldier on however many chips they need for that application.

    Seriously check around, lots of produces will have one or two DRAM chips soldiered onto it. It's slowly being replaced with DDR4 as DDR5 becomes more common.
    Reply