Phison is one of the leading makers of controller chips for SSDs and other flash memory devices – and CEO Pua Khein-Seng has now become a leading voice on how serious the RAM shortage can be.
Companies may have to curtail their product lines in the second half of 2026, and some companies may even die if they can’t get the components they need, he agreed in a televised interview with Taiwan’s Next TV’s Ningguan Chen.
While the interview is all in Chinese, friends The Verge stepped forward to confirm parts of the machine-translated summary that made the headlines. They also notice what is important that it is interview asking whether companies may go out of business or product lines may be discontinued. Khein-Seng largely just agreed, clarifying that this will happen if these companies are unable to provide enough RAM.
He also adds that he expects that over the next few years, people will start repairing products more often when they break instead of throwing them in the trash.
It is indeed possible that some companies accustomed be able to provide enough RAM. AI data centers are absorbing the vast majority of the world’s memory supply in a global build-out, creating an unprecedented supply-demand imbalance that has seen RAM prices triple, quadruple, or even six-fold in the past few months. Even Nvidia may miss shipping a gaming GPU for the first time in 30 years. Even Apple may now have problems securing enough RAM, not to mention memory chips for SSDs and other vital components.
The RAM shortage could affect everything computing touches in the next few years because just three companies control 93 percent of the entire DRAM market, and while those three companies are building more devices, they don’t want to build too fast. All three decided to prioritize profits instead of risking overproduction that could later lose them money.
I will have a report tomorrow, February 19th The Verge about how “RAMageddon” will affect you, even if you’d never think of buying memory.