Overview
- The global DRAM module market grew about 59% last year to roughly $21.2 billion as AI server demand pushed buyers toward DDR5 and high‑bandwidth memory such as HBM.
- Major suppliers are shifting wafer output to HBM and server DRAM to serve hyperscalers, and Samsung expects HBM4 sales to rise sharply as it ramps shipments for next‑generation AI platforms.
- Chinese newcomer CXMT has disclosed a large jump in committed capital spending and said its fifth‑generation DRAM process has entered mass production, changing competitive capacity prospects.
- Industry research firms and banks say wafer‑level capacity additions will not meaningfully ease tightness until about 2028 and warn that ABF substrates, advanced packaging, power and networking could become separate multi‑year bottlenecks.
- Long‑term purchase contracts, prepayments and rising prices are smoothing vendor revenues now but are not guaranteed to stop future cycles, and constrained memory plus packaging or power limits could slow data‑center expansion and raise costs for cloud customers.