Judge Keeps DRAM Price-Fixing Suit Against Chipmakers Alive
The court found the complaint plausibly alleged an illegal agreement, a stage that moves the case toward discovery rather than a verdict.
Updated on Nov. 15, 2026 in Semiconductors
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A U.S. federal judge in the Northern District of California has denied a joint motion by Samsung, Micron and SK hynix to dismiss a class-action antitrust lawsuit over dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips. The ruling, issued November 14, 2026, lets the case proceed; the development is litigation-stage, not a product or technology launch.
Why it matters
The court found the complaint plausibly alleged an illegal agreement under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits anticompetitive collusion, and the plaintiffs allege the three companies, which together held more than 91 percent of global DRAM revenue as of Q3 2025, shifted capacity toward High Bandwidth Memory for AI workloads. The defendants argue their moves were a reactive response to booming AI demand, a question the case must now resolve.
The complaint cites conventional DRAM prices rising 697 percent over an 18-month span, against the 91 percent combined share of global DRAM revenue held by the three defendants as of Q3 2025. Figures come from plaintiff allegations and have not been tested at trial, and the defendants have not yet filed their formal answers.
The players
Samsung
South Korean electronics conglomerate and one of the world's largest DRAM and NAND memory producers.
Micron
U.S. memory and storage maker whose DRAM and HBM products serve data centers, PCs and mobile devices.
SK hynix
South Korean chipmaker and a leading supplier of High Bandwidth Memory for AI accelerators.
The details
DRAM is the working memory used in computers and devices, and High Bandwidth Memory is a higher-performance variant stacked vertically to feed AI accelerators quickly. The complaint alleges the manufacturers began cutting conventional memory production in late 2022, redirected wafer capacity, which is the silicon-wafer output of fabrication plants, toward HBM in 2023, and that Samsung and SK hynix refused long-term contracts and delayed or halted new fabrication plants. These are allegations; the defendants dispute them.
Timeline
Late 2022: manufacturers began cutting conventional memory production, according to the complaint.
June 25, 2026: 17 consumers and small businesses across five states filed the class action.
November 14, 2026: Judge Noël Wise denied the joint motion to dismiss in full.
December 7, 2026: deadline for the three manufacturers to file formal answers to the complaint.
January 12, 2027: initial case management conference is scheduled.
The Tech Race
The case centers on the shift of DRAM wafer capacity from commodity memory to High Bandwidth Memory, the stacked memory that AI accelerators from Nvidia and others depend on. Whether that reallocation is lawful competition or coordinated restraint will shape how the three suppliers compete for HBM orders through 2027.
Consumers and small businesses who buy PCs, phones, servers and other devices with DRAM face the price effects alleged in the complaint, though the case is at the pleading stage and no damages have been awarded. Any relief would arrive only after the litigation runs its course, and no timeline beyond the scheduled dates has been set.
The takeaway
The ruling means the allegations of coordinated capacity cuts will be tested in discovery rather than dismissed on the pleadings. Watch the December 7, 2026 answer filings for the defendants' formal positions on the AI-demand explanation.
What happens next
An initial case management conference is scheduled for January 12, 2027, and the three manufacturers must file formal answers by December 7, 2026.
Further reading
Explore more on Semiconductors to see how memory supply is shaping the chip market.
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