Memory goes from 3% to a fifth of router cost

Claim

Western Digital's entire hard drive capacity for the year is booked and broadband memory prices have risen sevenfold in nine months, pushing memory from 3% to over 20% of router costs, while TSMC plans another $100 billion for four more US fabs.

Reported metric: 7x / 3%→20%

Reporting date: 2026-02-16 (not necessarily the event date)

Sources

Attribution and reporting linked by this record; links do not imply independent verification.

• Welcome to February 16, 2026 (theinnermostloop.substack.com)