Baird's Ross Mayfield on memory chip shortage: It's still a sellers market today - CNBC

Recent insights from Baird analyst Ross Mayfield, reported by CNBC, indicate that the memory chip market remains a seller's market despite ongoing global semiconductor supply chain disruptions. This o... Read original →

The memory shortage is cascading from consumer devices into AI and data center infrastructure, triggering a technical chain reaction: surging HBM demand has saturated TSMC’s CoWoS advanced packaging capacity, delaying other high-performance chips. DRAM scaling now bumps against physical limits, while Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron face EUV tool delays and cleanroom bottlenecks in expansion. Geopolitical friction amplifies supply fragility—U.S. export controls slow critical equipment access for Taiwan, China-based foundries, inflating global compliance costs. In this seller’s market, top vendors are pre-selling capacity to NVIDIA and AMD, forcing second-tier players into premium-priced deals or niche segments. Even as new fabs come online over the next 12–18 months, the transition to HBM4 and CXL-enabled memory will create fresh structural gaps, sustaining elevated pricing through at least Q1 2027.