September 16, 2026 · Decision research
Semiconductor Supply Chain
Finding
The weakest assumption was treating Micron's exceptional margin as proof of a physical shortage. That proxy is too narrow, but the underlying constraint survives a stronger test: memory suppliers and packaging providers are making long-dated capacity commitments because customer demand is already outrunning available supply.
What changed
The evidence has moved from one company's profitability to a cross-supply-chain pattern: Micron and SK hynix report customer commitments and supply expansion, TSMC describes very tight supply and adds advanced-packaging capacity, and Amkor is expanding a US packaging campus after customer commitments exceeded its first-phase capacity.
Decision
Do not change the action from consider to a full capacity or investment commitment now. Do raise confidence in the bottleneck hypothesis and change the monitoring rule: track allocation, qualification, lead times, customer contracts, and packaging capacity - not margins alone.
Watch next
The most important near-term test is whether suppliers continue to say requested volumes exceed their ability to deliver while AI-chip customers maintain their revenue outlooks. If that changes, the decision should change quickly.