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ASUS Rumored To Enter DRAM Market Next Year To Tackle Memory Shortages (wccftech.com)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/hardware@lemmy.world
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[–] 13 points 10 months ago (10 children)

Using what FAB capacity?

The whole reason there is a crisis is that OpenAI pre-purchased a shit-ton of wafers, and you can't just materialize a bunch more or the FAB capacity to turn them into chips.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (7 children)

    So I genuinely don't know a thing about the subject, but if there's a surface level answer you can give me...

    Why not? Could they not just open a plant to do exactly that?

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    The lithography machine (the machine that constructs the silicon chips at the hearts of our devices) is THE most complex piece of tech that exists. If you look up how they work, almost every piece of the tech is operating at the limits of current human capabilty in terms of precision and our understanding of physics.

    Going from ordering one, to having one set up and running in a FAB, can take a decade.

    You might be able to get older generations of lithographic manufacturing up and running faster, but these things require SERIUS infrastructure around them.

    You can't just set up production in a year or even two.

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  • [+] 0 points 10 months ago* (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago*

    Not the same thing.

    We're talking about semiconductor lithography.

    Lithography machines operate on nanometer precision and require a clean-room environment that makes the standards of medical facilities look like a joke. The machines required are more like ultra-complex projectors operating at wavelengths of light we had to spend decades figuring out how to even produce, not to mention the optics required to be precise enough to construct chips with features so small you can count the atoms they are made out of. The robotic machinery that moves the silicon wafers around is stone-age tech in comparison, and is used because the environment these machines require can't handle a human existing in the same room, because just the particles from our breath would introduce problems.

    Getting some robotic arms welding and screwing metal and plastic together to assemble a car is nothing in comparison.

    There are integrated circuits in a Tesla, but they don't make them. Remember how the car industry completely imploded back in 2022 during a shortage of the chips used in cars? None of them make them. No car company has their own semiconductor fab.

    Almost every tech manufacturer, buys fab manufacturing capacity from TSMC or another big fab maintainer.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Unless they were already building it, not in the next year. Or the one after. These things take longer to construct.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (3 children)

    What about converting existing plants to just make different kinds of chips? Does ASUS not already fabricate their own silicon?

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I could be wrong, but this'd be a first for them.

    They make plenty of things, but not the actual silicon chips.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    It may depend on your exact definition of whether they make it. I believe there are chips with Asus branding (just like I'm certain there are Lenovo-branded chips, and Asus is an ODM). I suspect they design some chips.

    However, Asus does not have their own fabs. At its core, this is where the shortage comes from. They would need to either find or build the additional fab capacity, which is a multi-year project.

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    • [–] 10 points 10 months ago

    https://wccftech.com/asus-enter-dram-market-next-year-to-tackle-memory-shortages-rumor/ Taiwanese outlet, CNA, has received a statement from ASUS regarding the DRAM rumor and stated that it currently has no plans to invest in a memory wafer fab.

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    18 comments in c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca view that post
    [–] 101 points 10 months ago

    After Gamer Nexus did their excellent piece on Asus and their frustrating RMA process I am wary of hardware from Asus, but beggars can't be choosers.

    Especially after Micron's decision to pull from the consumer RAM market. We need companies to step up to the plate.

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    [–] 65 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    It doesn't make much sense, it's not like Asus have a fab capable of producing DDR5 chips ... So they'll still have to try and source the chips from micron or Samsung who have pre sold all their stock to trash AI trash companies.

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  • [–] 32 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    The article states that the rumor would be Asus gets production lines up and running by end of Q2 of 2026 (typically that would be end of June for most companies).

    They do have experience in manufacturing already and RAM isn't as difficult to produce as say 14nm cpus.

    I do think it's an ambitious timeline though if the rumor is to be believed. The article does say to take it with a grain of salt.

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  • [–] 17 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    They do not have experience manufacturing chips and I do not think they are going to make a chip fab. The timeline is too short. Idk on the RAM is easier to make than CPU claim - it feels like it’s a different goal than CPU so node size comparison is less apt - but for a company that has no experience they’re not gonna shit out a fab in Q2 2026. The fab pros take years to build them.

    They do have the manufacturing ability to make DDR5 sticks, people can make them themselves right now - just get a PCB and the chips and put the BGA chips on! So Q2 2026 is fast but doable for their expertise there.

    Buuuut we come back to, they’ll need to get RAM chips from the remaining consumer suppliers - which you can’t right now cause some AI bro future bought all the chips with his future money he will surely get in the future.

    And so they won’t get any more than someone already in the market could get (Corsair, GSKILL, etc.). Thus, no change for the supply limit. TBH stupid to get into a market while it’s high; I don’t think they’ll be able to profit in time on the scalping prices before RAM prices crash when the AI money evaporates

    TLDR: rip gamerz

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Hypothetically, they could be placing orders for all the other chips needed in their other hardware, predicated on delivery on memory chips.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    There’s still no path for them to get RAM chips better than the already-established DDR5 makers. I don’t see how they’d have stronger leverage with Samsung, SK Hynix, or Micron than the regular RAM chip customers that already do business with the triopoly

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    • [–] 27 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I've tried to find info about the reputability of this "Sakhtafzarmag" that originally shared the rumor and came up with nothing; seems to be a very small publication with a near-stock WordPress template and a YouTube channel averaging ~200 views. Very likely to be bullshit.

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    • [–] 25 points 10 months ago

    I don't think this has much to do with the shortages or current prices, they don't have their own fabs so they would only be putting chips on boards. They probably just want to take up the hole in the market that Crucial left behind, especially in the future when supply stabilizes again.

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    [–] 24 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Where is the bottleneck with the DRAM? Isn't it at TSMC/Samsung? And Asus entering the game won't change anything, unless they have fabs, which I think they don't.

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    • [–] 10 points 10 months ago

    ASUS has already announced this isn't true.

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    [–] 18 points 10 months ago

    Smart. The earlier the better. After the AI bubble pops, I expect the RAM market to crash. Better to strike while the iron is hot.

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    [–] 9 points 10 months ago

    Asus has freed us from price gouging due to supply constraints!

    Asus: Oh I wouldn't say freed, more like, under new management.

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    [–] 9 points 10 months ago

    Will believe when I see it. Until then this is a total crock of shit.

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    [–] 7 points 10 months ago

    Interesting.

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    [–] 4 points 10 months ago

    I wonder who traded on this fake story...

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    [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    Asus. Yeesh.

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