We might not be past the worst part of the global memory shortages, as the most severe supply chain squeeze could happen soon. During Team Group's earnings conference on November 2, the company stated that the worst period in memory demand is projected to be between Q4 2026 and Q2 2027, which is just a few months away. Major memory makers such as SK hynix, Samsung, and Micron have sold out their 2027 supply and entered into long-term agreements with customers, making it increasingly difficult to source memory for any third-party purposes. Team Group states that even if you have the funds, it might be impossible to purchase memory products. Currently, it is possible to buy memory, albeit at a high price, but soon enough, that may no longer be an option, noted the company.

Even though CXMT and YMTC are supplying close to 10% of the memory market share with their products, it is still impossible to satisfy demand. A supply-demand balance may not emerge until the second half of 2028 or even later. Currently, Team Group sells most of its memory modules to businesses in the B2B sector, which commands 64.6%, while the B2C sector, selling directly to consumers, accounts for 35.4%. This is a sharp reversal compared to the 2025 Q3 figures, where B2B was 24.6% and B2C was 75.4%. Most of the revenue now comes from the business sector developing AI servers, rather than traditional consumer purchases.

Circana's Mat Piscatella recently published the analytics firm's 2026 gaming sales data that effectively shows reduced game and console sales, with total US market spend dropping across the board, despite rising prices of both video games and gaming hardware. More precisely, total video game hardware sales in the US for the 2026 year to date saw a YoY drop of 11%, from $2.856 billion in 2025 to $2.543 billion in 2026. Further, video game content, including physical and digital media, DLCs, microtransactions, and subscriptions, saw a 10% decline in August 2026 compared to the same month in 2025, but the year-to-date spend in the same category is down only 2%.

Perhaps expectedly, the August 2026 content spending data shows a 7% decline in US console content spending, while PC content spending increased by 13%, and subscriptions grew by 3%. Much of this PC growth is likely driven by increasing PC hardware prices caused by the ongoing AI data center demand squeeze, instead of an actual increase in PC adoption. Moreover, we are in the middle of a console generation, and the Nintendo Switch 2 launched long enough ago that its resulting bump in console sales would likely have flattened by now, although the Switch 2 was still the best-selling console in the US for both unit sales and dollar spend for August 2026 and the 2026 year to date.

Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today announced it has been ranked the top third-party DRAM module supplier in the world, according to the latest rankings by revenue from analyst firm TrendForce. Kingston retains its number 1 position with an estimated 62% market share.

TrendForce reported that the global DRAM module market generated approximately $21.2 billion in revenue in 2025, representing a 59% YoY increase and a significant acceleration from the 7% growth recorded in 2024. The market's expansion was driven by rising DRAM prices and stronger shipment volumes during the second half of the year. According to the report, Kingston's revenue grew 48% YoY in 2025, reinforcing its leadership position in a market where the top five DRAM module suppliers accounted for 77% of total revenue. Kingston alone represented nearly two-thirds of the market.

According to TrendForce statistics, the global DRAM module market generated $21.2 billion in revenue in 2025, up a strong 59% YoY. Rising prices and concentrated shipments from DRAM module makers in the second half of the year helped drive growth. This marked a significant acceleration from the 7% growth recorded in 2024.

DRAM market conditions changed dramatically between the first and second halves of 2025. In early 2025, some module makers increased their inventories of DDR4 chips in Q2, spurred by tariffs and the end-of-life (EOL) plans of DRAM suppliers for DDR4. They also supplied PC OEMs and other consumer electronics customers that had pulled forward procurement in response to tariffs.

Samsung is reportedly increasing its orders for materials to boost high-bandwidth memory (HBM) production, with plans to double the production capacity of its current HBM4 and HBM4E manufacturing by 2027. According to SE Daily, the manufacturing capacity for HBM4 and HBM4E is expected to grow from around 20,000 wafers per month in 2026 to 50,000 wafers per month in 2027. This data is derived from the use of glass carriers, which are temporary glass panels placed over thin DRAM wafers to prevent warping or breaking as they are prepared for packaging. Since HBM involves stacking many thin DRAM modules, glass carriers stabilize these wafers until the packaging process begins and the glass is removed. As the unit is one glass carrier per wafer, this provides an estimate of how many HBM4 and HBM4E wafers are produced each month.

Additionally, Samsung's overall HBM production, which includes older generations like HBM3 and HBM3E, currently averages around 180,000 wafers this year and is expected to grow to about 250,000 HBM wafers next year, with 80% dedicated to HBM4 and HBM4E. Samsung began mass production of HBM4 on its sixth-generation 10 nm-class 1c node in February, with HBM4E customer samples available by mid-2026. Future production increases will focus on HBM4 and HBM4E, as customers seek higher densities and bandwidth for their AI accelerators.

Chinese semiconductor maker SMIC has increased its market share as the world's third-largest chipmaker. According to the latest report from TrendForce, SMIC now holds 5.4% of the semiconductor manufacturing market share in Q2 this year, a slight increase from 5.1% in Q1. In the three-month period ending in June, SMIC generated about $3 billion in revenue from domestic companies producing homegrown silicon. This marks a significant improvement compared to $2.2 billion in Q2 2025, with a slight increase in market share from that period's 5.1%. This indicates that overall capacity has increased across the supply chain.

SMIC's most advanced manufacturing nodes include the SMIC N+2, a 7 nm-class node used by Huawei to manufacture its Ascend series of AI accelerators and other infrastructure parts, and the SMIC N+3, a 5 nm-class node for its customers. The company uses DUV to print silicon designs but faces significant challenges in achieving its silicon ambitions as it currently has no access to EUV tools, since ASML has restricted exports of its EUV scanners, and it is the only company manufacturing EUV machinery at scale.

It's not news that Arc Raiders has been a successful game for both Embark and its parent company, Nexon, but a new 2026 Q2 earnings report has put a number on the game's success as it approaches its one-year anniversary. According to Nexon's reporting, Arc Raiders has sold 16.3 million units globally—that's an additional 800,000 sales since March 2026. The financial report also revealed that Arc Raiders has earned over ¥88 billion ($552.3 million) since the October 2025 launch.

And we are particularly pleased with the enduring strength of ARC Raiders, which recognized more than ¥18.3 billion of revenue in the quarter. Recently surpassing 16.3 million units sold globally, ARC Raiders has generated revenue of more than ¥88 billion since the launch in October last year.

According to DigiTimes, industry insiders are now claiming that the entire memory production capacity for 2027 has been fully booked, well ahead of the schedule the industry expected. All of the big three memory makers—Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron—have sold out their memory capacity for the upcoming year, leaving no room for additional supply for third parties to purchase more DRAM wafers. Interestingly, the report notes that everyone from OEM server makers and PC makers to AI labs knows that July and August are crucial months for securing allocations for the following year. However, some businesses have been kept in the dark because nobody has been public about this out of fear of losing their allocation.

Memory makers have been pushing customers into long-term agreements with contracts ranging from three to five years, using an advance payment deposit model where customers essentially pre-pay for some of the memory capacity. These deals are made on an individual customer level. All of this combined signals that 2027 will be the worst year in recent history regarding memory shortages, meaning that only those who managed to sign agreements for supply will benefit, while the rest are left without as there simply isn't enough available DRAM. Only about 60-70% of the estimated demand can be met in 2027, leaving a significant amount of demand unmet and waiting for the 2028 supply.

Over the weekend, social media drama took a turn when the community accused Microsoft of running a new background tracking service on Windows 11. However, the company officially denies this. The whole event started on July 31st when a user on X noticed a new background service called "Windows Health and Optimized Experiences" that starts automatically every time the system is booted. This background service monitors the CPU's thermals and reportedly sends data every 15 minutes. However, this feature is not actually new and is used for diagnostics. According to Microsoft VP Scott Hanselman, when Windows 11 detects slow or sluggish behavior, it can record performance traces that can be sent to Microsoft via the Feedback Hub.

The service is not standalone telemetry but is initiated by Windows 11 itself, saving these files under "%SystemRoot%\Temp\DiagOutputDir\Whesvc." These files are stored locally, but there is an option to send them back to Microsoft for diagnostics and to improve future experiences using the Feedback Hub. Contrary to the fear-inducing post, this data-sending service is optional if the user chooses to submit a report. Additionally, Microsoft did not suddenly introduce this feature to Windows 11, as it has existed for over a year, having been included in the Windows 11 Canary build introduced in May 2025.

It was recently reported by MP1st that CD Projekt Red may be working with WayForward, the developer behind the 2.5D game series Shantae and RWBY: Arrowfell, on a new 2.5D brawler based in the Cyberpunk universe. The publication alleges that it has seen the portfolio of an unnamed former WayForward developer, who claims to have been working on the 2.5D brawler between 2025 end 2026.

The project is known internally as Gemini, and it would be based on the Cyberpunk Edgerunners TV series that has gained popularity on Netflix since its 2022 debut. It's currently unclear if the game is still in development or if it even made it out of the research and development phase, but the portfolio hinted that it was a brawler being designed as an online, multiplayer beat-'em-up game with rollback-safe architecture and online transport integration. The project even got so far as having its own Cyberpunk Edgerunners Gemini banner, which was included in the aforementioned portfolio.

DDR5 pricing in Germany has been picking up pace again, according to the latest report by 3D Center. Unfortunately, this July has seen a 7% monthly price increase for DDR5 kits, on top of the already elevated prices, pushing DDR5 to new all-time highs. Despite stagnation between February and slight price decreases in March and June, July has continued the upward trend, now placing the average cost of DDR5 memory at a 448% increase over the prices recorded back in July 2025. In a single year, prices have more than quadrupled, mostly driven by massive price hikes between October 2025 and January 2026. PC enthusiasts have already faced significant affordability issues due to these price hikes, and there doesn't seem to be an end to this trend.

Even ADATA's Chairman, Chen Li-bai, suggested that it might take another 10 years for the DRAM supply chain to stabilize. This is a grim outlook for PC DIY enthusiasts who want to build their own PCs or make upgrades, as DRAM is driving up the prices of GPUs as well as DDR5 memory kits. Only after 2030 might there be some preliminary estimations on whether the demand for more DRAM, more NAND Flash, and more computing power will be sustained until 2040 or 2050. For now, we are bracing for the impact of sustained price hikes, which have become the new norm for months.

TSMC's revenue reached an impressive 442.68 billion NTD in June 2026, which is about 13.75 billion USD (at the time of writing) for a single month of net revenue. This represents a remarkable 67.9% growth compared to the same month last year, driven by the record AI data center expansion. Month over month, TSMC's revenue increased by 6.2% from May 2026. These figures are impressive, considering that such high double-digit growth for a company already generating billions in revenue is one of the best performances in modern history. Additionally, TSMC generated revenue of 2,404.48 billion NTD, equivalent to about 74.66 billion USD, in the first six months of the year. This marks an increase of 35.6% compared to the first half of 2025, indicating that the trend is expected to continue.

In June, TSMC successfully began high-volume manufacturing of the N2 process. AMD has partnered with TSMC to manufacture its EPYC "Venice" on the 2 nm N2 process, alongside the CoWoS packaging that TSMC's facilities offer. AMD is now a top-tier client at TSMC, utilizing the latest nodes that were typically adopted first by Apple, followed by others. Apple is following AMD with its A20 SoC for iPhones and M6 SoC for MacBooks. TSMC's revenue target for the full year 2026 is expected to significantly surpass the 2025 figures, as the company encourages customers to adopt more advanced built on pricier wafers.

NVIDIA reported its Q1 2026 earnings with revenue reaching $81.6 billion, setting a new record. Amid these record-breaking results, the company announced a change in how it reports revenue from its GeForce RTX gaming GPUs. According to NVIDIA CFO Colette Kress, the standalone GeForce RTX GPU gaming revenue is no longer separately listed and is now integrated under the "Edge Computing" segment. This segment "highlights devices for agentic and physical AI, including PCs, game consoles, workstations, AI-RAN base stations, robotics, and automotive." The last standalone report for gaming revenue was in Q4 2025, where NVIDIA posted $3.7 billion. Now, under the "Edge Computing" category, NVIDIA reported $6.4 billion, an increase of 10% from the previous quarter and 29% from the same period last year, when this segment had a different name.

With the new reporting structure, NVIDIA includes revenue from GeForce RTX GPU sales, as well as contributions from AI models, automotive, software libraries, and accelerated networking infrastructure like AI-RAN. These segments now form a smaller portion of NVIDIA's total revenue, collectively referred to as "Edge Computing." This new segment accounted for only 7.84% of the total Q1 revenue, indicating that NVIDIA's reporting structure now aligns with its revenue sources. This might be one of the last ways to track quarterly gaming revenue, as the company is integrating other verticals here. We may not know exactly how the GeForce GPU segment is performing unless NVIDIA provides separate information. Below you can see highlights form the Gaming and AI PC segment in the Q4 2025, versus the "Edge Computing" transition in Q1 2026.

AMD's server CPUs are experiencing significant success, as the company captured nearly half of the server CPU spending in Q1 2026. According to the latest data from Mercury Research, AMD's EPYC CPUs account for 46.2% of total server CPU spending—a new all-time high for AMD's server CPU portfolio, which has become a major success in data centers. Interestingly, this is achieved with only a 27.4% unit share, indicating that while AMD's CPUs may not constitute exactly half of the units sold, they command much higher average selling prices (ASPs) than the competition. This competition is primarily from Intel, the largest CPU vendor. Intel currently holds the majority of units sold at 54.9%, a decrease of 3.4% compared to Q4 2025. We lack data on revenue share for Intel CPUs, but given their majority in unit shipments and AMD's near half share in spending, it can be concluded that the ASP of Intel Xeon server CPUs is lower than that of AMD EPYC.

In the data center, Arm-based designs account for about 17.7% of unit shipments in Q1 2026, meaning nearly one in five CPUs was Arm-based. Whether these were third-party integrations from Ampere or other Arm CPU makers, or in-house CPU designs from companies like Google, AWS, or Microsoft, remains unclear. However, Mercury Research collects extensive data, lending confidence to these figures.

Global semiconductor materials market revenue increased 6.8% year-over-year to $73.2 billion in 2025, SEMI, reported today in its Materials Market Data Subscription (MMDS). Growth was supported by gains in both the wafer fab materials and packaging materials segments, reflecting higher process complexity, advanced-node demand, and continued investment in high-performance computing and high-bandwidth memory manufacturing.

Wafer fabrication materials revenue increased 5.4% to $45.8 billion. Lithography-related materials, including photomask, photoresist and ancillaries, along with wet chemicals, posted strong double-digit growth as higher process intensity and tighter lithography requirements continued to increase materials consumption.

PC motherboard sales are on track for some of the biggest corrections in recent times as manufacturers struggle with weak demand, according to a DigiTimes report. What began as AI data center expansion quickly started affecting consumer PC DIY endeavors, as severe silicon shortages across the industry drove DRAM and CPU demand so high that prices have increased significantly for DDR4 and DDR5 memory kits, while regular CPUs have also seen a large price increase. In response, PC motherboard makers are caught in the middle of this shortage, seeing their motherboard unit sales revised down significantly. The report notes that all Taiwanese motherboard makers have significantly lowered their 2026 shipment targets, with some experiencing more than a 25% decrease in projected unit sales.

Interestingly, it's not only CPU and memory shortages driving this lowered demand; there are indications that consumers have slowed down their NVIDIA GPU upgrade cycles, which is impacting new motherboard sales. Particularly with the "Blackwell" GPU generation, consumers began purchasing PCIe 5.0 motherboards to achieve the greatest performance increase. However, as these GPUs became rarer and more expensive due to the global DRAM shortage, consumers have become reluctant to upgrade. ASUS is projected to sell about 10 million motherboards in 2026, while MSI and GIGABYTE are now projecting sales of less than 10 million units each. This represents about a 25% yearly decrease from 2025 sales. The worst position is estimated for ASRock, which is expected to see a 30% decrease according to the report.

According to sources close to MacRumors, Apple is abandoning the development of the next-generation Vision Pro headset after the product failed to capture significant market share. With sales of "only" 600,000 units, Apple has not seen this product line take off as its other products have. Launched in February 2024, the Vision Pro headset debuted with a steep $3,499 price tag. In October 2025, about a year and a half later, Apple updated the Vision Pro with its latest 3 nm M5 SoC, typically used in MacBooks, but even this refresh failed to generate significant interest and orders from users. Although the system offers a technically impressive solution, the market has reacted poorly, particularly due to the high price point Apple set.

Technically, the headset features a micro-OLED 3D display system with 23 million pixels and weighs between 750-800 grams, depending on the headband choice. However, users have complained about the device's weight and distribution, especially around the nose area, which often feels heavy on a single pressure point. No headband choice has been able to completely alleviate this issue. Additionally, the price point is too high for consumers, especially for a technology that is relatively new to the Apple ecosystem. As a result, MacRumors tipsters suggest that Apple is close to completely abandoning the project.

Elon Musk announced today on X that Tesla has completed the design of a new generation of its AI chips for Full Self-Driving (FSD). The CEO also mentioned earlier that the AI5 chip will offer performance comparable to NVIDIA's "Hopper" architecture, with two AI5 units matching the power of a single "Blackwell" processor. In late 2025, reports indicated that Samsung had achieved a significant win for its previously struggling foundry business, as Tesla decided to split the manufacturing of its new AI5 accelerator between Samsung and TSMC. The chips will be produced at Samsung's plant in Taylor, Texas, and TSMC's facility in Arizona. This decision is part of a strategy to keep the supply chain diversified and maintain chip supply under control for any demand scenario.

Samsung and TSMC are not the only partners in this project. Tesla is also sourcing DRAM chips from SK hynix, which appear to be LPDDR5X memory integrated into the package. On both the left and right sides, there are two rows of SK hynix LPDDR5X memory modules, each with three modules. This totals 12 LPDDR5X memory modules per AI5 chip. With 16 GB per module, this results in 192 GB of LPDDR5X memory per single AI5 SoC.

In the latest Q1 2026 quarterly figures, ASML announced plans to ship over 60 EUV units this year, including both High-NA and Low-NA EUV lithography scanners. This is a significant increase from the 48 units shipped in 2025, but it doesn't break any records compared to the company's expectations for 2027. ASML predicts shipping about 80 EUV systems in 2027, driven by massive demand from memory makers. As memory has become the most sought-after commodity in AI data centers, there is simply not enough supply to meet demand. In Q1 2026, ASML reported that nearly half—45% to be precise—of its revenue came from South Korea.

While ASML hasn't provided specific data per manufacturer, we know that South Korean semiconductor makers primarily focus on memory, storage, and to a lesser extent, logic production. More than half of the quarterly shipments, at 51%, are dedicated to memory production. Companies like SK hynix and Samsung are purchasing many EUV systems to support their growing memory and storage businesses, which include the latest technologies like GDDR6, HBM3, HBM4, and DDR4/DDR5, all consumed by AI data centers worldwide. SK hynix plans to install 20 Low-NA EUV units in the next two years, all designed for HBM memory and advanced storage solutions, making SK hynix one of ASML's largest customers.

DDR4 pricing is finally showing signs of easing, as DDR4 16 Gb spot prices experienced a 5% correction in March after a more than 2,200% increase over the past year. The massive demand for AI data center expansion absorbed all available DDR production, making DDR4 and DDR5 pricing widely discussed topics among enthusiast communities. This has impacted PC DIY enthusiasts, laptop makers, PC OEMs, and everyone in between. Over the past year, the rapid price increase has effectively priced out many consumers from upgrading or installing new systems with larger RAM capacity. However, there are signs that the situation might improve as spot pricing has started to decrease.

First, readers need to understand the difference between spot and contract pricing in DDR memory. Contract pricing is what memory makers like Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron agree on with large buyers, such as PC OEMs like Apple, HP, or Dell, or even server makers who purchase DRAM in large quantities. On the other hand, spot pricing is an "on-the-spot" deal that provides immediate pricing without any contract. This spot pricing is typically reserved for smaller DRAM volumes and is usually bought by DRAM distributors and supply chain logistics. In the spot pricing market, DDR4 has fallen about 5% in March compared to February pricing, and the same applies to DDR5 memory spot pricing.

The latest research from Omdia shows that US PC shipments (excluding tablets) grew 3% year-on-year in Q4 2025 to 18.2 million units, reversing two consecutive quarters of annual decline. The return to growth was driven by a combination of the peak of Windows 11 commercial refreshes, holiday-season demand, and vendor efforts to secure inventory ahead of anticipated memory and storage supply constraints in 2026. Full-year 2025 shipments reached 71.5 million units, up 3% from 2024, but 2026 shipments are now forecast to decline 13% year-on-year due to highly constrained supply of memory and storage products.

"Q4 marked a meaningful inflection point for the US PC market," said Kieren Jessop, Research Manager at Omdia. "After two quarters of year-on-year decline, the market returned to growth driven by solid performances across both the consumer and commercial segments. Consumer shipments rose 6% to 8.2 million units - the fourth consecutive quarter of annual growth - underpinned by holiday spending and a product mix shift to more affordable price ranges. The commercial segment grew 4% as enterprises continued their Windows 11 migration, particularly in the final stretch before the Windows 10 end-of-support deadline in October."

TrendForce's latest findings show that global OLED monitor shipments hit 2.735 million units in 2025, a 92% YoY increase. This impressive growth was mainly fueled by aggressive promotional efforts by brands in the fourth quarter. Furthermore, 27-inch 240 Hz QHD models gained considerable popularity due to their excellent price-to-performance ratio, significantly increasing shipments. The launch of new 280 Hz models further energized the market.

Looking ahead to 2026, total shipments are expected to grow by 51% YoY as brands continue to roll out new products and marketing strategies gain further traction.

Microsoft has quietly removed a registry hack workaround that enabled faster NVMe SSD speeds by activating a native NVMe software stack. Late last year, Microsoft gradually introduced native NVMe SSD support in Windows Server 2025 as an opt-in feature. This was significant news for Windows Server users who had been dealing with non-native NVMe SSD processing, which was emulated through a series of commands. For instance, Windows converted NVMe drive commands into SCSI commands, resulting in processing latency and overhead, which slowed down read/write speeds in typically high-performing storage configurations. With native NVMe support, the entire stack and I/O processing have been redesigned to achieve optimal SSD performance, running at native speeds.

Within the Windows enthusiast community, there were a series of registry hacks that allowed the system to run native NVMe processing through various unofficial OS modifications. Below is the old method, which Microsoft has now blocked. Perhaps the reason for blocking this hack is that Microsoft is preparing to launch native NVMe SSD processing with the upcoming Windows 11 25H2 update for everyone and the 26H2 update for Windows-on-Arm devices. For now Windows 11 doesn't support the native NVMe SSD processing, and instead relies on the older drive commands conversion into SCSI.

Turtle Beach Corporation (Nasdaq: TBCH), a leading gaming accessories brand, today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2025 and provided full year 2026 guidance for net revenue and Adjusted EBITDA.

"Our team operated with strong discipline in 2025, executing our strategic initiatives to sharpen our competitive edge," said Cris Keirn, Chief Executive Officer of Turtle Beach Corporation. "Although our fourth quarter and full-year results were below guidance due primarily to softness in North American gaming accessories markets and a lighter holiday sell-through environment, we took steps to manage costs, protect our brand position, and prepare the Company for renewed growth."

Acer Inc. (TWSE: 2353) announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2025 and fiscal 2025 ended December 31. In the fourth quarter, Acer reported consolidated revenues of NT$74.36 billion, up 12.6% YoY; gross profits of NT$8.59 billion, up 23.6% year-on-year (YoY) with 11.6% margin; operating income of NT$1.87 billion, up 82.3% YoY with 2.5% margin; and net income of NT$1.07 billion with earning-per-share (EPS) of NT$0.36.

For the full year of 2025, consolidated revenues reached NT$275.63 billion, up 4.1% YoY; gross profits of NT$29.99 billion, up 7.1% YoY with 10.9% margin; operating income of NT$5.14 billion, up 5.5% YoY with 1.9% margin; and net income of NT$3.78 billion with earning-per-share (EPS) of NT$1.26.