The Greensheet: November 2025

Key Themes

• Nexperia Crisis Enters New Phase, Triggering Industry-Wide Substitution: While limited shipments from Nexperia China have resumed under yuan-based transactions, OEMs are no longer accepting parts produced after October 13, 2025 due to concerns over authenticity. This has ignited a frantic, global search for alternatives, with some distributors now barred from supporting brokered deals.
• The Great Memory Shortage of 2025–26 Deepens: Samsung has reportedly hiked contract prices for DDR5 modules by up to 60%, with 32GB pricing surging. Customers are being forced into weekly, non-negotiable pricing and NCNR terms to secure minimal supply.
• Intel’s 10nm Crisis Becomes Structural: Intel is formally proposing double-digit price hikes on its entire 10nm portfolio (12th–14th Gen desktop, mobile, and server CPUs) to customers, citing unsustainable production economics. This confirms the shortage is no longer a temporary bottleneck but a strategic wind-down, as Intel prioritizes its 18A node for next-gen AI PCs. Small-core CPUs (N-series) and Raptor Lake Refresh remain in “super-short” supply.
• SSD Market Squeezed by Dual Demand Shock: Enterprise SSDs from Solidigm and Samsung are now effectively allocated only to “Big 7” cloud customers (Tesla, Microsoft, OpenAI, etc.), leaving minimal support for distribution channels. This, combined with soaring DRAM/NAND costs, has led PNY to suspend all Black Friday storage deals and manufacturers to signal 20–30% Q4 price hikes across the board.

Product Updates

Integrated Circuits

Supply Constraints and Market Shifts

• The Nexperia export crisis has caused a massive demand surge for TI and onsemi discretes as automotive Tier 1s rush to qualify alternatives.
• Analog Devices has notified customers that a formal 15% price increase will take effect on February 1, 2026, across its entire portfolio. An additional ~1,000 military-grade MPNs (suffix /883) will see hikes of approximately 30%. This comes as lead times for key series like OPA have stretched beyond 40 weeks.
• Both Marvell (98DX, 88E6320 series) and Realtek are experiencing 32–52 week lead times. Their production capacity is being diverted to high-end AI-related chips, starving mid- and low-end product lines of allocation.

CPUs 

Pricing Trends and Supply Constraints

• Intel will raise prices on select Desktop, Mobile, and Embedded SKUs across its 10nm CPU portfolio. This includes 12th–14th Gen Raptor Lake desktop, Raptor Lake Refresh mobile, effective December 28, 2025, as the company manages an unsustainable production cost structure.
• AMD’s Genoa and Turin server CPUs are now facing 24-week lead times. Customers report that AMD is only accepting forecasts for reference and is not guaranteeing allocation, forcing them to seek open-market support for critical projects.
• Intel’s small-core CPUs (N355, N97, etc.) and mobile SKUs like the SRMDQ remain in “super-short” supply, with distributors unable to provide firm ETAs and spot market prices soaring.

GPUs

Shifting Availability and Lifecycle Changes

• Due to a critical GDDR7 chip shortage, Nvidia has informed channel partners that RTX 5090 production will be minimal until at least April 2026. The company is not accepting new purchase orders, confirming a sustained and severe supply gap for this high-demand GPU.
• Allocation for the RTX PRO 2000 and 4000 Ada series has been pushed from end-November to January 2026. The RTX PRO 5000 is also seeing lead times exceed 8 weeks, as Nvidia prioritizes the higher-margin RTX PRO 6000 and Blackwell B-series for AI deployments.

Networking Cards 

Persistent Shortages

• Broadcom has announced an 18% price increase on key RAID controllers (e.g., 9560-8i) effective November 1, 2025, citing rising memory costs. Lead times for these high-runners have stretched to 6 months

Memory

Production Restart and Capacity Challenges

• Samsung has hiked contract prices for DDR5 modules. Prices for 16GB, 32GB, and 128GB modules have also risen by ~50%.
• Major memory module manufacturers and key Samsung distributors are unable to provide Q4 pricing or accept new spot orders, citing a complete lack of allocation from the Big 3 (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron).
• SK Hynix distributors state they are currently unable to quote or sell LPDDR4X/LPDDR5X products even with existing inventory due to MFR supply constraints. MFR cannot commit to delivery dates for long-overdue orders.
• Reports that eMMC supply has become severely constrained, with allocation now covering only 15% of total order quantities. Pricing continues to escalate sharply every quarter. Q3 saw a 30% increase for 4GB and a 20% hike for 8GB modules.

 

RDIMM

Long-Term Support with Tight Allocation Ahead

• Module suppliers are now quoting daily and requiring parts to be accepted within 30 days of PO release or risk losing allocation, underscoring extreme volatility and a strong seller’s market.
• AI server demand is driving an acute higher-density RDIMM allocation crisis, with manufacturers struggling to supply enough high-density modules to meet soaring requirements, highlighting the acute shortage at the highest densities.

SSD

Capacity Shortages and Manufacturer Price Moves

• Distributors report that Samsung and Solidigm are now allocating the majority of their enterprise SSD capacity directly to major cloud service providers. Channel support is dwindling, and special pricing has been removed for most SKUs.
• The market is seeing a 20–30% increase from Samsung and Micron for its Q4 SSD orders.

HDD

Tight Supply for High-Capacity SKUs and Extended Lead Times

• Reports suggest that Toshiba is now unable to support orders for high-capacity models like the MG10ACA20TE (20TB). Lead times for its 10–24TB drives now stretch into Q1–Q2 2026, and pricing for these backorders will not be honored. 
• Reports that Seagate is increasing prices “almost every day,” especially on low-capacity SKUs, with allocations being released in smaller and smaller batches.

Passives

Extended Lead Times and Allocation

• Panasonic will implement a significant price increase on its tantalum capacitor line in Q1 2026, with full production capacity already booked through the quarter.

Supply Chain Trends 

• Distributors Force Unprecedented Bundle Mandates: A severe shortage in global DRAM supply has reportedly led some distributors to impose unprecedented bundling requirements on buyers. Certain channels are now requiring customers to purchase motherboards alongside DRAM modules at a one-to-one ratio, or risk being denied access to memory stock entirely.
• Automotive Industry’s “De-China” Push Accelerates: The Nexperia crisis has become the catalyst for a rapid and coordinated industry effort to qualify non-Chinese alternatives and “de-China” the automotive supply chain. The report cited sources revealing that Tesla and its suppliers had already replaced some China-made components, and they aim to replace the remaining parts with those made outside China within the next 1-2 years.

Manufacturer News and Updates 

• Skyworks to Acquire Qorvo: In a major industry consolidation, Skyworks Solutions has announced a $22 billion cash-and-stock deal to acquire Qorvo. The merger aims to create a U.S.-based leader in high-performance RF, analog, and mixed-signal semiconductors, with significant implications for supply and pricing in the mobile and automotive sectors. 
• Samsung Forecasts Record Profits on Memory Shortage: Citing “tight supply and rising prices of conventional memory chips”, Samsung Electronics has projected its highest quarterly profit since 2022 for Q3 2025, a direct result of the ongoing market crunch. 
• Intel Simplifies CPU Family: Intel confirms claims that it is simplifying its product stack in the upcoming "Diamond Rapids" Xeon 7 family of processors, and the focus is on memory bandwidth. Intel has confirmed that its upcoming seventh-generation "Diamond Rapids" Xeon processors will feature the second generation of MRDIMMs (Multiplexer Rank Dual Inline Memory Modules), marking an upgrade from the first-generation MRDIMMs used in the Xeon 6 family.