SK Hynix takes over Dalian Intel Semiconductor Memory Company

South Korean chip giants Samsung Electronics and SK hynix recently announced that they will extend the production of DDR4 memory until the end of 2026. This decision reverses their original plan to phase out the product, reflecting an unexpected price reversal in the current memory market.

Although DDR5 is regarded as the next-generation mainstream standard, DDR4 has ushered in a “second spring” due to a supply-demand mismatch. Data shows that starting from June 2024, the price of DDR4 began to exceed that of DDR5. By August, the average spot price of DDR4 16Gb had reached $8.59, while that of DDR5 was only $6.17, showing an obvious “price inversion”.

This phenomenon mainly stems from tight supply. With the surge in demand for global AI data centers, manufacturers such as Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron have shifted more production capacity to the production of HBM (High Bandwidth Memory), which has squeezed the supply of DDR4. At the same time, there is still stable demand for DDR4 in fields such as industrial control and communication infrastructure, further pushing up prices.

In the short term, extending DDR4 production will help alleviate market shortages and bring higher profits to enterprises. However, in the long run, the technological trend of DDR5 replacing DDR4 will not change, and it will gradually become the mainstream of the market in the future.