One signal

AI demand has pushed the theoretical selling value of DRAM above the nominal per-area cost of TSMC’s leading-edge N2 and N3 wafer production, according to analysis cited by Tom’s Hardware. Analysts estimate 1Gb of DRAM could represent about $0.654 per square millimetre, compared with roughly $0.424 for an N2 wafer.

Why it matters

The comparison points to a striking shift in the economics of AI hardware: memory is no longer merely the supporting cast beside the expensive compute chip. It is becoming one of the most valuable parts of the system, as data centres demand vast quantities of fast memory. There is an important asterisk, and it is doing respectable work. The figures compare theoretical DRAM bit-density revenue with contract-based foundry wafer pricing, and do not account for packaging, usable die yields or actual contract terms. Tom’s Hardware attributes the observations to Kurnal Insights, so this is a market signal rather than a clean profit comparison.

Discuss: Should AI hardware investment now prioritise memory supply as aggressively as compute, even when the comparison between the two remains economically imperfect?

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