TrendForce expects HBM contract pricing to reset sharply higher for 2027

EE Times Asia reported TrendForce research showing that conventional DRAM price increases since late 2025 have tightened the memory market, while annual HBM pricing has lagged quarterly market moves. Buyers and suppliers are now moving into 2027 HBM4 negotiations, and supplier economics have become a central issue. The key RamTrend signal is that HBM must compete internally with conventional DRAM for wafer allocation. TrendForce's analysis indicates that HBM wafer revenue and profitability have fallen below DDR5 64GB RDIMM since the first quarter of 2026. That creates a strong incentive for suppliers to push HBM pricing higher so production allocation remains attractive. Demand is still rising. The payload points to AI ASIC upgrades in 2026, larger HBM capacity per chip, continued Nvidia Rubin demand, and a further Rubin Ultra increase to 384GB per GPU in 2027. TrendForce also expects HBM wafer input among the top three suppliers to rise as a share of total DRAM wafer input through 2027. The result is a bullish HBM pricing setup with spillover implications for RDIMMs, server LPDDR, and conventional DRAM used in AI edge devices.