Former head of Samsung's chip division: Memory prices will decrease next year.

Currently, the demand for storage chips in the artificial intelligence market has surged, leading to a supply shortage in the memory industry. However, a senior industry expert pointed out that this situation may change in the second half of next year. On Tuesday, at the 285th NAEK Forum of the Korean National Academy of Engineering, Kye-hyun Kyung, a permanent consultant of Samsung's Device Solutions Division and former president of Samsung Semiconductor (DS) Department, stated that Chinese companies are actively expanding production capacity. With the increase in supply of storage chips, the market dynamics may change in the second half of next year or the first half of 2028. He added that if the return on capital expenditure of large tech companies decreases, they may cut down on investments. As a result, not only prices may decrease, but the demand for memory itself may shrink after 2028. At the same time, he emphasized that although South Korea holds a 70% share of the DRAM market, it only accounts for 1.5% in chip design. Unlike Taiwan, South Korea's semiconductor ecosystem, which lacks a wafer fab, is very fragile. Capacity Expansion According to a report by the German tech media 3DCenter, which has been tracking memory prices for a long time, as of May, the price of DDR5 memory chips in the German market has increased by 414% compared to July 2025, but has slightly decreased since the beginning of this year. He pointed out that the significant increase in memory prices has prompted China to expand chip manufacturing capacity on a large scale. If these investment expansions are successful, the market will soon see a significant increase in supply, pressuring memory prices to return to rational levels. Predictions show that by the end of 2027, global silicon wafer manufacturing capacity could reach 6 million pieces per month. While end consumers will surely welcome lower prices, he warned that this rapid growth poses risks to the entire tech industry, as a surge in supply could easily turn the current shortage into a serious oversupply. This could be a huge blow to South Korean companies benefiting from the memory shortage. He believes that South Korea needs to expand its share in chip design in the global wafer-less factory field in order to remain competitive in the competition with the US and China. Additionally, he emphasized that South Korea should independently develop advanced technologies, including memory, wafer-less factory system semiconductors, and autonomous artificial intelligence, and actively apply them to its own manufacturing industry in advantageous areas. This article is reprinted from "Cailian News Agency," author: Ma Lan; GMTEight editor: Xu Wenqiang.