3 ms·

> OpenAI isn’t even bothering to buy finished memory modules! No, their deals are unprecedentedly only for raw wafers — uncut, unfinished, and not even allocat

> OpenAI isn’t even bothering to buy finished memory modules! No, their deals are unprecedentedly only for raw wafers — uncut, unfinished, and not even allocated to a specific DRAM standard yet. It’s not even clear if they have decided yet on how or when they will finish them into RAM sticks or HBM! Right now it seems like these wafers will just be stockpiled in warehouses That is not "totally normal".

bee_rider 10mo ago
It seems not normal (in the sense that it is obviously quite weird to but like half of the world’s RAM supply). But I wonder if they are also just not ready to announce what they are doing with it? I mean with that many wafers, I guess it is possible that they’d be doing something pretty custom with the things…
- justinclift 10mo ago
  > But I wonder if they are also just not ready to announce what they are doing with it? Didn't they announce some kind of AI-silicon recently? Wouldn't it be for that?
arjie 10mo ago
It's not really that different from Apple reserving wafer starts on TSMC's next node and so on. It's just that this kind of capacity requirement has rarely shown up in DRAM before. Vendors prefer this kind of capacity reservation over a more variable finished product requirement. It allows them to know that they can build at the bottleneck rather than having to start up more capacity and then having that lie idle while everything downstream in DRAM packaging and DIMM production can't actually consume anything.
- hodgehog11 10mo ago
  I don't buy it. It's easier to make this argument for companies that are building their own hardware, since they know it can be immediately used. OpenAI's move is tantamount to hoarding for the sake of strangling competition. There was plenty of supply to allow for their plans without this move (especially since they will probably go bankrupt at this rate).
  - arjie 10mo ago
    How exactly could they 'hoard' this? There's no place in the world to store that much undiced wafer. It will all go bad.
    - machomaster 10mo ago
      In what time will packaged wafers go bad? What is this based on?
    - brewdad 10mo ago
      Granting this premise is true (I have no idea), that makes it even worse. They would deliberately be hoarding 40% of the global supply not to lock in for future growth but simply to make sure no one else gets to have it. It’s figuratively setting chips on fire.
    - shash 10mo ago
      If stored in proper conditions, the shelf life of undiced wafers is pretty much limitless. But if moisture or dust get in, it’ll start to have corrosion and other damage. Diced wafers on the other hand are placed on UV tape and I recently learnt that the shelf life of that is like a few months at best. Nevertheless, unless you’re not storing them in a clean room of appropriate class (or in a vacuum pack), assume 18 months for undiced wafers. In terms of size, I would think that stored in cassettes or carriers a vacuum sealed, it shouldn’t be too much. A 25 wafer pack is about half meter cube? A 40ft shipping container is about 68m^3. So one container can store about 140 packs of 25 wafers each. That’s 3500 wafers. They’re talking about 900k wafers. That’s about 260 containers. Call it 300 with extra space and stuff. Not exactly hard to provision.
    - justinclift 10mo ago
      Wonder if they'd rather have it go bad than let their competitors get it?
- harimau777 10mo ago
  Did Apple reserve 40% of the supply and cause a massive shortage. If not, then I don't see how its the same.
  - beeflet 10mo ago
    Apple maintains efficiency and single-core performance dominance with the M-series processors by reserving capacity for cutting edge fabrication processes.
    - lillecarl 10mo ago
      They're also reserving capacity on something that doesn't exist yet, and finalize their purchases into finished products. OpenAI is reserving wafers so others can't buy them. They are not the same
  - eightysixfour 10mo ago
    Not only do they buy 40%, they bought 100% of TSMC's 3nm capacity for a year, locking everyone else out of 3nm chips.

bee_rider 10mo ago

It seems not normal (in the sense that it is obviously quite weird to but like half of the world’s RAM supply). But I wonder if they are also just not ready to announce what they are doing with it? I mean with that many wafers, I guess it is possible that they’d be doing something pretty custom with the things…

justinclift 10mo ago
> But I wonder if they are also just not ready to announce what they are doing with it? Didn't they announce some kind of AI-silicon recently? Wouldn't it be for that?

arjie 10mo ago

It's not really that different from Apple reserving wafer starts on TSMC's next node and so on. It's just that this kind of capacity requirement has rarely shown up in DRAM before. Vendors prefer this kind of capacity reservation over a more variable finished product requirement. It allows them to know that they can build at the bottleneck rather than having to start up more capacity and then having that lie idle while everything downstream in DRAM packaging and DIMM production can't actually consume anything.

hodgehog11 10mo ago
I don't buy it. It's easier to make this argument for companies that are building their own hardware, since they know it can be immediately used. OpenAI's move is tantamount to hoarding for the sake of strangling competition. There was plenty of supply to allow for their plans without this move (especially since they will probably go bankrupt at this rate).
- arjie 10mo ago
  How exactly could they 'hoard' this? There's no place in the world to store that much undiced wafer. It will all go bad.
  - machomaster 10mo ago
    In what time will packaged wafers go bad? What is this based on?
  - brewdad 10mo ago
    Granting this premise is true (I have no idea), that makes it even worse. They would deliberately be hoarding 40% of the global supply not to lock in for future growth but simply to make sure no one else gets to have it. It’s figuratively setting chips on fire.
  - shash 10mo ago
    If stored in proper conditions, the shelf life of undiced wafers is pretty much limitless. But if moisture or dust get in, it’ll start to have corrosion and other damage. Diced wafers on the other hand are placed on UV tape and I recently learnt that the shelf life of that is like a few months at best. Nevertheless, unless you’re not storing them in a clean room of appropriate class (or in a vacuum pack), assume 18 months for undiced wafers. In terms of size, I would think that stored in cassettes or carriers a vacuum sealed, it shouldn’t be too much. A 25 wafer pack is about half meter cube? A 40ft shipping container is about 68m^3. So one container can store about 140 packs of 25 wafers each. That’s 3500 wafers. They’re talking about 900k wafers. That’s about 260 containers. Call it 300 with extra space and stuff. Not exactly hard to provision.
  - justinclift 10mo ago
    Wonder if they'd rather have it go bad than let their competitors get it?
harimau777 10mo ago
Did Apple reserve 40% of the supply and cause a massive shortage. If not, then I don't see how its the same.
- beeflet 10mo ago
  Apple maintains efficiency and single-core performance dominance with the M-series processors by reserving capacity for cutting edge fabrication processes.
  - lillecarl 10mo ago
    They're also reserving capacity on something that doesn't exist yet, and finalize their purchases into finished products. OpenAI is reserving wafers so others can't buy them. They are not the same
- eightysixfour 10mo ago
  Not only do they buy 40%, they bought 100% of TSMC's 3nm capacity for a year, locking everyone else out of 3nm chips.