Micron, the world's No. 3 memory semiconductor corporations in the United States, said that as high bandwidth memory (HBM) absorbs available production capacity amid the spread of artificial intelligence (AI) services, a severe supply shortage is persisting in legacy industrial memory segments such as smartphones and PCs.
Manish Bhatia, Micron's executive vice president and head of operations institutional sector, said in an interview on the 16th (local time) after a groundbreaking ceremony for a DRAM plant near Syracuse, New York, that "smartphone and PC makers are lining up to secure volumes for after 2027, and Autonomous Driving cars and Humanoid Robot will further amplify this demand." With major manufacturers concentrating production capacity on HBM used in AI chips, "the supply shortage we are seeing is truly unprecedented," he said.
Sanjay Mehrotra, Micron's chief executive officer (CEO), also said on a conference call in Dec. last year that "along with the supply shortage, sustained and strong demand is making the (memory) market tight," adding, "we expect this situation to continue beyond 2026." Micron said its AI memory has been fully booked through this year. To prioritize supply for strategic corporations customers such as Nvidia, Micron decided in Dec. last year to discontinue its popular consumer memory brand "Crucial."
Market research firm Counterpoint Research estimated in a report in Dec. last year that global smartphone shipments could decline 2.1% this year as a memory shortage raises expense and pressures production.