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Tech News
On Apple's fiscal Q4 earnings call, COO Sabih Khan said the foldable iPhone Duo remains supply-constrained and that it's hard to predict when demand will be met, with ship times stretching into next year for many buyers. Khan also noted the company has raised prices on some products due to rising memory chip costs tied to AI demand, and said Apple is deepening its titanium supply partnership with Perryman to support Duo production.
Samsung Electronics reported third-quarter operating profit of 107.44 trillion won on revenue of 195.25 trillion won, both roughly matching analyst forecasts and marking a fourth consecutive quarter of record results. The company also announced dividends of 30 trillion won for the quarter and plans to return 55-75 trillion won to shareholders this year, yet its shares dropped 5% after the announcement.
China's largest DRAM manufacturer, CXMT, is reportedly set to begin limited production of advanced high-bandwidth memory chips within the next two months, despite yields suffering from a failure rate as high as 70%. The push comes amid China's broader effort to build domestic capacity for AI-critical memory chips.
SK Hynix reported that net profit more than tripled in the third quarter, with revenue and operating profit reaching record highs for a sixth consecutive quarter. The South Korean memory-chip maker announced plans to return $75 billion to shareholders following the results.
Industry analysis suggests that surging demand for memory chips, driven largely by AI companies, is raising component costs for Microsoft and Sony as they develop next-generation gaming consoles. Current Xbox and PlayStation hardware has already seen price increases tied to these chip shortages, and the report warns future console prices could rise far more sharply.
Samsung projected its operating profit will top $80 billion for the first time, driven by strong sales of memory chips. The company pointed to continued global demand for advanced chips as businesses expand investment in AI infrastructure and applications.
Samsung Electronics anticipates its quarterly operating profit to reach approximately 107.4 trillion won ($80 billion), marking a ninefold increase from the previous year. This surge is primarily attributed to heightened demand for memory chips used in AI data centers, alongside strong sales of new foldable smartphones launched in August. The company’s full earnings report for the third quarter will be published at the end of October.
Nokia's CEO, Justin Hotard, stated that data centers could be built twice as quickly if supply chain issues were resolved, emphasizing ongoing demand for AI infrastructure. He noted shortages of memory chips and energy as current constraints and expressed confidence that the sector remains in early growth stages. Nokia has shifted focus to AI-related connectivity technology, boosting investor confidence with a 130% stock increase over the past year.
Micron beat Wall Street expectations with adjusted earnings of $33.42 per share and revenue of $54.23 billion, nearly quadruple the figure from a year earlier. The chipmaker guided for roughly $61.5 billion in revenue and $38.15 in adjusted earnings per share next quarter, topping analyst estimates. DRAM revenue, its largest segment, rose 343% year-over-year to $39.8 billion.
The Trump administration is pursuing policies aimed at boosting domestic semiconductor production, including memory chips where the US lags foreign producers. However, proposed tariffs on imported components and materials could raise costs for American chipmakers trying to expand production.
ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) announced at the 2026 World Manufacturing Convention that it has begun mass production of its fifth-generation DRAM platform, called G5. The company says the platform uses new self-aligned quadruple patterning with an 11.95nm active-area half-pitch, a 45:1 capacitor aspect ratio, and a high-k metal gate process, delivering roughly 50% more die per wafer than prior generations.
Analyst Kurnal Insights calculated that at current AI-driven memory prices, the revenue value of DRAM per square millimeter of silicon now surpasses the nominal wafer processing cost of TSMC's advanced N2 and N3 logic nodes. Using an assumed DRAM price of $1.50 per gigabit, the newest 1b DRAM generation works out to about $0.654 per mm², compared to roughly $0.424 per mm² for an N3 wafer.