Dynamic random-access memory, the standard memory chip, as against the high-bandwidth memory stacked beside an accelerator. Chapter 5.
From The AI Compute Race. Read the book
Where the book uses it
- Chapter 5 — The Island in Every Machine
Why every accelerator runs through Taiwan: the foundry, the packaging and the memory that are booked years ahead, and what that does to anyone arriving late with cash.
Sources that use it
- Micron Technology, fiscal fourth-quarter 2021 earnings call, 28 September 2021, as transcribed by MarketBeat (Toshiya Hari of Goldman Sachs, of the bit growth expected in calendar 2022: “What portion of that growth are you guys expecting purely from transitions to 1-alpha 176?”; Dave Zinsner, chief financial officer, at 00:49:03: “We’re not adding wafers. We don’t see, for the foreseeable future, adding wafers in either DRAM or NAND. In the next few years, we might be adding wafers in DRAM, as Sanjay mentioned”; Micron publishes no text of the question session, and a second transcript, AlphaStreet’s, agrees in substance and differs in punctuation; both print his first words as “all from no transitions”, which is “node transitions” misheard; held in the vault). In the Sources
- Micron Technology, “Fiscal Q3 2026 Earnings Call Prepared Remarks,” 24 June 2026 (sixteen strategic customer agreements across the memory business, not HBM alone: “we have completed 16 SCAs with customers across the data center, consumer and auto market segments”; “The 16 signed agreements represent roughly 20% of our DRAM volume and a third of our NAND volume over this period”, typically “a five-year term, from calendar 2026 through the end of calendar 2030”; “They provide committed DRAM, including HBM as appropriate, and NAND supply”; for the agreements signed so far, including some after the quarter ended, “RPO is approximately $100 billion”). In the Sources
- SK hynix, “SK hynix Invests 54 Trillion Won in Yongin Y2 and Cheongju M17 to Secure Mid-to-Long-Term Production Base for AI Memory Demand,” news release, 7 August 2026 (Yongin “Y2”, 35.2 trillion won, “a DRAM production base” “targeting the opening of its first cleanroom in June 2029 to produce high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and other next-generation DRAM products”, and Cheongju “M17”, 19.1 trillion won, the company’s “new NAND fab base”, with “plans to open its first cleanroom in December 2028” — “cleanroom expansions and equipment installation will take place sequentially in line with demand trends”) In the Sources
- Apple, Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 27 June 2026 (manufacturing purchase obligations of about $57 billion; suppliers not named; $56.2 billion of it payable within 12 months; in its risk factors, “a period of supply constraints and increasing costs for components”, advanced semiconductors, NAND storage and DRAM memory named among the components; “The Company expects these trends to intensify”). In the Sources
Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce, "Revision to License Review Policy for Advanced Computing Commodities," final rule, 91 FR 1684–1689, with the Department of Commerce's press release of 13 January 2026, "Department of Commerce Revises License Review Policy for Semiconductors Exported to China" (Federal Register Volume 91, Number 10, Thursday 15 January 2026; FR Doc 2026-00789; Docket No. 260112-0028; RIN 0694-AK43), effective 15 January 2026; issued and filed for public inspection 13 January 2026 (a case-by-case license review policy for exports to China or Macau of commodities "with a TPP … less than 21,000, and a `total DRAM bandwidth' … less than 6,500 GB/s" — both ceilings — "such as the NVIDIA H200 or AMD MI325X"; the applicant must show that "the aggregate TPP of ``advanced-node integrate circuits'' exported to China or Macau will be no more than 50 percent of the aggregate TPP shipped to customers in the United States for end-use in the United States for the same advanced computing commodities from when such circuits started shipping to commercial U.S. customers … to the time of the license application" (supplement no. 2 to part 748, paragraph (dd)(1)(iii), the rule's only "50 percent"); third-party testing by a lab headquartered in the United States, the testing in the United States, of every chip or "a representative sampling of a batch"; the release, headed "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | January 13, 2026": "Today the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a rule revising its licensing policy for semiconductor exports to China" and "The rule is effective immediately upon publication in the Federal Register" — two documents and two dates, the release of 13 January and the rule published and effective on 15 January). In the Sources
And 14 more: search the Sources.
Related terms
From the glossary of The AI Compute Race.
How to cite this page
Dryburgh, Lee S. “DRAM.” In The AI Compute Race. DRYBURGH. https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/dram (accessed 2026-11-01).
BibTeX
@misc{dryburgh-dram-2026,
author = {Dryburgh, Lee S.},
title = {{DRAM}},
howpublished = {In \emph{The AI Compute Race}, DRYBURGH},
year = {2026},
url = {https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/dram},
note = {Accessed 2026-11-01}
}