RAM prices going up thanks to Japan/South Korea trade wars

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    Image credit: Extremetech

    Not even a month has passed since we last reported about how RAM prices are falling through the floor and how the time is ripe for building new systems or upgrading existing ones.

    Well, it seems as though we spoke a bit too soon because the ongoing price war between Japan and S. Korea is majorly affecting memory prices in an adverse way. The latter houses the 2 largest memory manufacturers in the world viz. Samsung and SK Hynix. S. Korea imports 92% of its photoresists and nearly 50% of Hydrogen fluoride from Japan, the 2 objects essential for memory manufacturing. Unfortunately for PC builders, the Japanese government, in response to the Korean demands, has decided to choke the supply of such chemicals and neither of the 2 substances can be stockpiled which makes building up inventory extremely difficult, if not impossible. So it’s not hard to see why some analysts, like Mark Newman of Bernstein, are predicting a memory price hike as South Korea accounts for the vast majority of the World’s memory supplies.

    The effect is pronounced in India as well since within the last few days most of the 8GB RAM modules have shot up in prices by more than 20% and will likely continue to rise in the current state of affairs.

    So now you know why RAM is called “volatile” memory.

    Source: wccftech via nytimes

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