Chipmakers Sued Over Alleged 700% DRAM Price Inflation

A proposed class-action lawsuit was filed on June 25, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology. Seventeen plaintiffs, including individual consumers and small businesses, allege the three companies coordinated to restrict the supply of conventional DDR3 and DDR4 DRAM to artificially inflate prices. The complaint claims this strategy contributed to a nearly 700% price surge over the last four years, a trend dubbed the RAMpocalypse.

The lawsuit asserts that the companies used the industry shift toward High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for AI data centers as a pretext to wind down legacy production. This supply squeeze has reportedly forced hardware manufacturers, such as Apple, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Valve, to raise consumer prices for computers and gaming consoles. The filing highlights a pattern of anticompetitive behavior, referencing a previous price-fixing conspiracy between 1998 and 2002 that resulted in penalties from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron maintain that the reallocation of production capacity to HBM was an independent, market-driven response to AI demand. They argue that HBM requires more raw wafer capacity, which naturally tightens the supply of legacy products. The plaintiffs are seeking treble damages, class certification, and an injunction to end the production squeeze.