The latest hardware component to be affected by component shortage seems to be DDR5 memory which is virtually out of stock across all major retailers.
DDR5 Memory Is Out of Stock Due To Major Component Shortages
DDR5 memory is one of the biggest features of Intel’s 12th Gen Alder Lake Desktop platform but many users who purchased the processor and motherboard are now sitting and waiting to get their hands on DDR5 memory kits. We were expecting DDR5 memory to be short for a while but the component crisis is worse than anticipated. It turns out, that the main component of DDR5 DIMMs, the PMIC (Power Management Integrated Circuit) faces severe shortage, as reported by 12chip.
Currently, there is a shortage of DDR5 sticks in the market, and sources from Boardchannels say that the main reason for the shortage is that the DDR5 memory is equipped with a power management chip PMIC, which is currently in very short supply.
Sources said that the PMIC chip is currently in very short supply, while the purchase price of the PMIC chip to be used in DDR5 memory is 10 times more expensive than the corresponding chip in D4, and the procurement cycle is at least 35 weeks.
via 12Chip
A per various tech board channels, it has been highlighted that the PMIC chip is short in supply, and not just that, but the price to purchase that chip is also 10 times higher than what memory makers had to pay with DDR4 for the same chip. The main difference is that with the DDR5 standard, the power management shifts from the motherboards to the memory module itself. Hence it requires a new and specialized chip to be used for power management that lets the memory access power directly from the PSU rather than the motherboard managing the power delivery.
Now that PMIC’s are short across the globe, this also leads to a shortage of DDR5 memory, and as such, we should expect even higher prices till things get better. But it is also said that the time to procure DDR5 PMIC chips is also at least 35 weeks which means that this shortage could last till the mid of 2022. We already discussed how DDR5 will initially end up over 60% more expensive than DDR4 memory and that it will take up to 2 years to reach price parity with DDR4 memory. More on that here.