Afternoon update 5:09 PM ET

Memory Report — 2026-07-13

the U.S. tariff pressure on Korean makers, the Micron-GM automotive supply deal, and the Kioxia/SanDisk BiCS10 NAND sampling milestone. These are distinct from the earlier stock-plunge coverage.

Washington is turning the memory supercycle into a leverage play, with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick openly pressing Samsung and SK Hynix to build fabs on American soil or face tariffs of up to 100 percent on chips from South Korea.

Lutnick said he wants to bring competitors Samsung and SK Hynix to the United States to build larger production facilities, arguing that if Micron leads investments on the U.S. mainland, competitors will feel compelled to follow, and warned that if they do not invest in the United States, Washington could impose a semiconductor tariff of up to 100% on major producing countries such as South Korea. The timing is pointed. Lutnick stopped by a Micron event and said he is already in talks with Samsung and SK Hynix about building new factories in the U.S. The two Korean makers already have American footprints to lean on, with Samsung's Taylor, Texas foundry and SK Hynix's advanced packaging plant in Indiana, but both remain modest against the scale being pushed in Washington. The bull-case read is that political pressure only accelerates the capex Korea was going to deploy anyway, and durable AI demand is the reason everyone wants these fabs on their turf.

On the demand side, the shortage keeps pulling in buyers who normally sit further back in the queue. Micron and General Motors signed a Strategic Customer Agreement on July 1, and the terms show how far the squeeze has spread beyond data centers. Under the deal, GM will secure supply of LPDRAM, NOR, and UFS NAND products from Micron, and the two companies will continue working together to develop and qualify future memory technologies for next-generation vehicle platforms. GM characterized the deal as a precautionary measure aimed at shoring up access to key components, not a reaction to any current supply problems, and S&P Global Mobility data cited by Reuters shows DRAM prices have surged roughly 70% from December levels, fueled by record AI data center spending. Micron said the GM deal is one of 16 strategic customer agreements the company discussed on its fiscal third-quarter 2026 earnings call.

NAND is answering the tightness with new density. Sandisk and Kioxia have both begun sampling BiCS10 1Tb TLC 3D NAND, the 10th generation of the flash the two jointly develop, the same 332-layer product announced from both sides. BiCS10 stacks 332 layers and reaches an industry-leading 1Tb TLC density greater than 29 Gb/mm2, a 59% improvement in bit density versus the BiCS8 node currently in mass production. Unlike prior generations, BiCS10 is explicitly aimed at data center-grade storage, with a 4,800 MT/s transfer rate to serve SSDs on PCIe 5.0 and 6.0 interfaces. Mass production is expected to start next year at the Kitakami Plant 2 in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. The context is unforgiving: the launch lands inside the most severe NAND shortage in over a decade, with contract prices projected to rise 70 to 75% quarter-over-quarter in Q2 2026, driven by enterprise SSD demand tied to generative AI.

Watch whether the tariff push forces a concrete U.S. fab commitment from Seoul in the coming weeks, and whether BiCS10's data-center focus signals Kioxia and Sandisk ceding client NAND to hold the high-margin enterprise line.

July 13th, 2026

Memory Report — 2026-07-13

Sources