The highly competitive world of semiconductor manufacturing is facing a dramatic legal challenge, as three of the industry’s largest memory makers—Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron—have been sued for allegedly conspiring to manipulate the supply of DRAM.
On June 25th, these titans were named in a class action lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by seventeen plaintiffs. The core accusation is that these companies illegally coordinated their actions to restrict DRAM supply and artificially inflate prices, which the complaint claims have soared by roughly 700% over the last four years.
The legal action invokes Section 1 of the Sherman Act, targeting a group that collectively controls around 90% of the global DRAM market. At the heart of the plaintiffs’ argument is a claim that the memory makers strategically shifted focus toward high-bandwidth memory (HBM), the stacked DRAM essential for powering advanced AI accelerators, as a calculated maneuver to curb production of older DDR3 and DDR4 modules.
The lawsuit suggests this contraction in commodity DRAM was designed not just to raise prices, but to prevent rivals from building the massive, multi-billion dollar fabrication plants required to compete. This strategy, plaintiffs argue, left the incumbents free to cut output without fear of being undercut by new entrants.
Seeking redress, the named plaintiffs—which include individuals and small PC businesses citing consumer price hikes as evidence of the market squeeze—are demanding class status, an injunction, and treble damages. They point to recent increases in products like Apple’s iPads and MacBooks as tangible results of this supply constraint.
However, the legal path is complex. This case revisits prior litigation in the same court where a similar claim was brought by law firm Hagens Berman in 2018. That earlier action was dismissed, with the Ninth Circuit ruling that the trio’s conduct was more likely explained by typical, uncoordinated free-market behavior than by an illegal agreement.
The current complaint attempts to pivot on the HBM strategy as new evidence to counter this prior dismissal. While the allegations remain unproven and the defendants have yet to respond in court, market experts continue to forecast continued volatility. Investment bank Jefferies anticipates DRAM prices will rise another 40% to 50% in the third quarter and further 30% to 40% in the fourth quarter, with no meaningful relief expected before 2028.
Despite the legal scrutiny, the memory makers have publicly asserted that they are operating independently while successfully redirecting capacity toward cutting-edge technologies. Senior executives have also warned that this commodity shortage could persist for years, highlighting the complex interplay between geopolitical competition and critical supply chains in the age of artificial intelligence.
Credit: Tom’s Hardware
