Micron

A fresh US lawsuit alleges the three DRAM makers coordinated the shift to high-bandwidth memory and the killing of DDR3 and DDR4 to keep supply tight and prices high. It points to Apple's sweeping product price increases as the trigger.

The skeptics in the thread, several with high karma, made an awkward point: with AI demand so hot that margins run near 80%, nobody has any reason to collude. And it isn't the first attempt: a near-identical 2022 suit collapsed when plaintiffs couldn't prove an agreement ever happened.

The agreements cover 40% of Micron's revenue and lock in margins “well above” any past peak, on the back of AI-driven memory scarcity. Q3 revenue hit $41.5 billion, up 346% year over year.

Skeptics in the thread call the contracts hedges, not handcuffs: no buyer keeps paying $1,000 for a part trading at $20, breakup fee or not. The counter-read is that this is just a market putting a floor under producers and a ceiling under buyers.

Apple almost never raises prices on a product it already shipped; it waits for a new chip to justify the number. This week it broke that rule across the Mac and iPad lines, blaming a memory-cost spike it called unprecedented. The base iPad went from $299 to as much as $449.

The asterisk from the thread: Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron are now each worth over $1.3 trillion, with memory gross margins reported above 80%. The shortage that 'forced' the hike is also minting the suppliers.