With the current semiconductor pricing hike, how long will it last? based on the solid facts, collect legit estimations in the future with high accurate reasoning.
Output condition
as of
Research date: 12 October 2026
Scope: Global memory, foundry wafer pricing, and selected chip categories. Forecasts are not guarantees; prices and contract terms vary by product, buyer, and supplier.
There is no single semiconductor-wide end date. The strongest current evidence supports continued price pressure into 2027, especially for DRAM and high-bandwidth memory (HBM). My best estimate is that DRAM price increases can persist through most of 2027, with the first meaningful relief most plausibly arriving from late 2027 to the first half of 2028. NAND Flash may ease earlier, around the second half of 2027, if supply growth beats demand. Selected foundry price increases are also expected to continue into 2027, but the evidence does not establish when those wafer prices will normalize. ( Gartner, 2026-09-30; Gartner, 2026-10-02; TrendForce, 2026-07-30; TrendForce, 2026-06-30 )
“Relief” means price growth slows, levels flatten, or prices begin to decline. It does not mean prices return to their 2025 levels. The increase rate is already moderating in some memory categories, while prices remain high and supply remains tight. ( TrendForce, 2026-09-30; Gartner, 2026-10-02 )
Be careful not to treat total semiconductor revenue as a price index. Gartner’s August forecast attributes much of the 2026 market expansion to memory pricing: it projects $837 billion in memory revenue for 2026 and more than $1 trillion in 2027, while non-memory revenue is forecast to grow to $864 billion in 2027. Revenue combines price, shipment volume, and product mix, so it cannot establish that every chip category is becoming more expensive. ( Gartner, 2026-08-24 )
Confidence labels below are my qualitative assessment of forecast timing: near-term direction is more dependable than an exact turning month several quarters ahead.
| Segment | Current estimate | Best timing estimate | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conventional DRAM | TrendForce forecasts +10–15% quarter over quarter (QoQ) in 4Q26. Gartner’s 3Q26 forecast estimates DRAM prices +18% in 2027, after a 2026 surge, with a 4% supply shortfall in 2027. | Further increases are plausible through 2027. Gartner expects initial price relief from late 2027 to 1H28, followed by significant declines in 2028. | High for Q4 2026 increases; medium for the late-2027/early-2028 turning point. (TrendForce, 2026-09-30; Gartner, 2026-09-30; Gartner, 2026-10-02) |
| NAND Flash | TrendForce forecasts +15–20% QoQ in 4Q26. It expects supply growth to strengthen in 2027, with supply conditions easing in 2H27. | NAND is the leading candidate to flatten or correct first, potentially in 2H27. AI data-center demand for enterprise solid-state drives (SSDs) could delay the easing. | High for Q4 increases; medium for 2H27 easing. (TrendForce, 2026-09-30; TrendForce, 2026-07-30) |
| HBM | TrendForce forecasts the blended average selling price (ASP) to rise 121% year over year (YoY) in 2027. This is a blended figure affected by a richer mix of newer, more expensive HBM4 and HBM4e products; it is not a like-for-like price increase for every HBM part. | Strong price pressure is likely through 2027 while supply remains constrained. | Medium. The direction is supported, but the headline ASP change is highly mix-sensitive. (TrendForce, 2026-09-29) |
| Foundry wafer services and selected ICs | TrendForce expects mature-node foundry price pressure to extend through 2027. DIGITIMES reported a 3–6% TSMC wafer-out increase for 2027; Reuters had earlier reported an increase of up to 10% based on sources. TSMC told Reuters it does not comment on pricing, so neither figure is official company guidance. TrendForce also reported that some IC designers were considering 5% to double-digit increases in late 2026 or early 2027. | Price increases can continue into 2027 for constrained nodes and products. There is no strong public estimate for a broad foundry price decline. | Medium for direction; low-to-medium for exact percentages and affected products. (TrendForce, 2026-06-30; DIGITIMES, 2026-09-24; Reuters, 2026-07-21; TrendForce, 2026-10-05) |
AI demand is competing for the same constrained capacity. TrendForce says suppliers continue shifting advanced DRAM capacity toward server products, while HBM and conventional DRAM compete for limited advanced-process and wafer capacity. HBM also uses more wafer input per unit of memory output than conventional DRAM, so shifting production toward HBM does not translate one-for-one into extra DRAM bits. ( TrendForce, 2026-09-30; TrendForce, 2026-07-30; TrendForce, 2026-09-29 )
New capacity takes time to affect supply. TrendForce expects some new DRAM capacity to come online in 2027, but says equipment installation and ramp-up delay meaningful output contributions until 2028. This supports a longer DRAM cycle than a simple announcement of new fabs might imply. ( TrendForce, 2026-07-30 )
Supplier commentary confirms tight forward demand, but is not a price forecast. Micron’s chief executive said on the September 30 earnings call that memory and storage supply-demand conditions were expected to be much tighter in fiscal 2027 and 2028 than in 2026. Reuters also reported that customer commitments under Micron’s long-term supply agreements had grown to $32 billion. This is evidence of forward demand and supply being booked, but it does not by itself prove that spot or contract prices will rise at a fixed rate for two years. ( Reuters, 2026-09-30; Micron, 2026-09-30 )
End-market affordability is already limiting demand. Gartner reported that global PC shipments fell 22.4% year over year in 3Q26 and said higher memory and storage costs had been passed through to PC prices. TrendForce also says consumer electronics demand is weak, and that NAND suppliers are taking a more flexible pricing stance where buyers have adequate inventory. These are real restraints on further increases, but they have not yet offset AI-related demand for server memory and enterprise SSDs. ( Gartner, 2026-10-12; TrendForce, 2026-09-30 )
Price growth is slowing before prices fall. TrendForce’s 4Q26 conventional DRAM forecast is +10–15% QoQ, compared with a roughly 60% second-quarter surge cited by Reuters. This indicates a sharp slowdown in the rate of increases, not that the price level has already turned downward. ( TrendForce, 2026-09-30; Reuters, 2026-10-06 )
NAND has a clearer supply-relief path than DRAM. TrendForce expects faster output growth from higher-layer NAND transitions and new-fab ramp-ups in 2027. Its July forecast says the market could move toward a positive supply-demand balance in 2H27. However, TrendForce also identifies enterprise SSD demand from cloud service providers (CSPs) and AI workloads as a variable that could absorb additional supply. ( TrendForce, 2026-07-30; TrendForce, 2026-07-21 )
The most defensible base case is:
My overall estimate: Plan for elevated memory costs through 2027. Treat late 2027 to mid-2028 as a plausible DRAM relief window, and 2H27 as the earlier NAND easing window. Treat foundry prices separately, since current public evidence supports continued increases into 2027 but does not provide a reliable market-wide normalization date. ( Gartner, 2026-10-02; TrendForce, 2026-07-21; TrendForce, 2026-06-30 )
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