ingve5d ago

DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/dram-pricing-is-killing-the-hobbyist-sbc-market/

DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

Today Raspberry Pi announced more price increases for all Pis with LPDDR4 RAM, alongside a 'right-sized' 3GB RAM Pi 4 for $83.75. The price increases bring the 16GB Pi 5 up to $299.99. Despite today's date, this is not a joke. I published a video going over the state of the hobbyist 'high end SBC' market (4/8/16 GB models in the current generation), which I'll embed below: But if you'd like the tl;dr:

Jeff Geerling
Show threadbashtoni5d ago

Helium supply issues are only going to make this worse.

I feel like for the first time in our lives we might have seen peak technology for the next few years. Everyone is going to have to make do instead of depending on ever increasing performance.

Show threadDylan168075d ago

Ultra clean rooms with massive air handling systems can't recapture all their helium?

Or is this just a temporary thing based on where processing is located?

Show threadhmry5d ago
AFAIK they recapture most, but recapturing all simply isn't possible / financially feasible. And they use a lot of helium, so even if they capture most of it, the losses are still higher than the currently available supply.
Show threadzozbot234
How does the helium demand differ by fabrication node? Do leading-edge nodes use more and trailing-edge nodes less of it, or is it more or less the same for a wafer no matter what the node?
Apr 2 at 12:02amWeb