"Memflation": Cheaper RAM not expected until 2028, says Gartner

For worldwide semiconductor device revenue in 2026, market researchers at Gartner forecast growth of 64 percent to 1.3 trillion US dollars. In 2025, it was 805 billion US dollars.

However, a significant portion of the revenue growth is not due to increased production volumes but to the sharply increased prices for DRAM and NAND flash chips. DRAM (for main memory) will become 125 percent more expensive this year. For NAND flash (for SSDs and memory cards), Gartner even expects a 234 percent price increase.

“Memflation” stifles markets

30 percent of all devices sold in 2026 will be AI chips, Gartner further predicts. This means AI remains the biggest driver of semiconductor demand. However, AI accelerators for large models require a lot of DRAM, and AI data centers, in turn, require a lot of flash memory. Therefore, the rapidly rising prices for memory chips are also dampening demand for some AI chips.

Above all, Rajeev Rajput, Senior Principal Analyst at Gartner, expects that so-called “Memflation” will weaken all markets unrelated to AI: “Memflation will destroy, or at least delay, non-AI demand into 2028, to varying degrees depending on the application." In the coming months, prices for RAM and flash are expected to rise particularly sharply, then the rate of increase will likely weaken. However, significant price reductions are not expected until late 2027.

Forecast: Worldwide semiconductor device revenue
Market segment	2025	2026	2027
	[Billion US-$]	[Billion US-$]	[Billion US-$]
Memory (RAM, Flash)	216.3	633.3	748.1
all others	589.0	686.9	806.4
total market:	805.3	1,320.2	1,554.5
Source: Gartner, April 2026

Confusing market

The semiconductor device market is confusing because there are many different types. The largest revenues are generated by so-called logic chips, such as processors, microcontrollers, graphics processors, AI accelerators, FPGAs, network and sound chips, as well as specialized controllers (USB, PCIe, SATA, I/O) and ASICs. These are followed by the aforementioned memory chips.

But there are many other types, such as sensors, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), analog ICs, LEDs and other optoelectronic chips, or power semiconductors.

(ciw)