With virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence becoming prominent features on new smartphones and apps, DRAM content in high-end smartphones shows no signs of slowing.  Meanwhile, DRAM growth for smartphones is also stemming from less developed countries, where much of the population is moving from feature phones to their first smartphone—literally transitioning from zero to 1GB of mobile DRAM.

Based on historical trends, the DRAM industry will likely experience a decline (possibly a big market decline) in its growth rate in the not-too-distant future as prices begin to tumble with significant capacity additions and an increase in DRAM output expected over the next year or two.  Announcements by Samsung and SK Hynix in the second half of 2017 confirmed that new DRAM capacity is set to come online in 2018, which likely will ease the upward trend of DRAM ASPs next year.  Samsung has stated its semiconductor capital expenditure budget for 2017 will be an enormous $26.0 billion, and SK Hynix has announced plans to build a new manufacturing line at its massive facility in Wuxi, China.  Micron has gone on record as saying it doubts that it will ever need to build another new DRAM fab, but it is hard to imagine that Micron will sit still as its two fiercest rivals capture additional marketshare.  (For the record, Micron and Intel are developing Crosspoint memory as a potential replacement for DRAM).