Overview
- Micron told investors it expects demand to exceed supply in calendar 2027 and 2028 and warned customers they will pay much higher prices in 2027.
- The company has largely pre‑sold the memory it plans to produce next year, leaving little inventory for new buyers and limiting near‑term supply flexibility.
- Memory makers are shifting wafer capacity to high‑bandwidth memory used in AI servers, and Samsung predicts HBM could use about 30 percent of DRAM wafer capacity next year.
- Micron is committing heavy capital and plans new fabs that should start production in 2028, but executives say cleanroom build and slow ramping mean those sites will not give immediate relief.
- The shortage is already raising consumer costs with higher smartphone and PC prices in 2026, and Micron warns that long‑term demand from 'physical AI' robots could add a sustained new drain on memory capacity.