Thanks for the (unified) memories

TidBITS Talk
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RAM prices are skyrocketing, sayeth Ars Technics. Demand from AI systems has caused shortages, exacerbated by panic buying, just like toilet paper during the COVID pandemic. As a result prices have doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled in just the last quarter – and that’s assuming what you want isn’t sold out.

It’s only going to get worse. Micron Technology announced today that they are exiting the consumer space, which is a Crucial blow. Why? Blame AI again. Memory manufacturers are reallocating production capacity to produce the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AI accelerators.

What I’m wondering is: given that products using Apple Silicon have unified memory in the System on a Chip (SoC), does that mean Apple products are largely unaffected? Or will they be hit by increases in costs for flash memory?

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Apple doesn’t buy chips on the spot market. They have long-term high-volume contracts with the chipmakers. So they won’t be affected by short-term pricing fluctuations.

Will this be a short-term price spike or something we’re going to be dealing with for the next few years? It’s anybody’s guess, but in the tech world, everything changes quickly, including pricing trends.

I wouldn’t worry about it that much. Yes, it’s going to cost more if you need parts now, but if you can afford to wait a bit, I can guarantee that they’ll come back down again. I just can’t say how long it might be.

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