Memory Chip Crisis Forces Small Tech Firms to Rethink Devices
Independent and small-scale smartphone and laptop manufacturers are being forced to adopt unconventional strategies—including redesigning products, testing components, and adjusting costs—as they grapple with an unprecedented shortage of memory chips. Sustainable and repairable device makers such as Fairphone, Jolla, and Framework say that securing or obtaining chip allocations has now become a bigger challenge than the soaring cost of the chips themselves.
According to the CEO of chipmaker SK Hynix, 2027 could be one of the worst years in the history of the technology industry in terms of chip supply, with the shortage potentially continuing until 2030.
According to a forecast by research firm Counterpoint Research, the global smartphone supply could fall 13.9 percent this year to 1.08 billion units due to the memory chip shortage, marking the largest annual decline in history.
For handsets priced at around $400, memory alone can account for as much as 60 percent of the total component cost, making the production of low-cost or entry-level smartphones increasingly unprofitable.
According to TrendForce data, contract prices for DRAM chips nearly doubled at the beginning of the year. Although the pace of price increases has now slowed somewhat to between 13 and 18 percent, supply conditions have yet to return to normal.
With limited capacity to stockpile large quantities of raw materials, small companies are adopting innovative approaches to survive the crisis. Finnish mobile brand Jolla has modified the motherboards of its devices so that individual chips can be installed if combined memory packages are unavailable.
At the same time, as the sale of counterfeit and refurbished chips misrepresented as new has increased, the company is conducting quality-control tests on samples from every batch.
Meanwhile, US laptop maker Framework’s modular design allows customers to remove memory components from older laptops and use them in new devices. To cope with the additional cost burden across different devices, some companies are raising prices, while others are introducing separate fees for memory upgrades.
//DBTech/reuters/BMT/OR//
