>Prices will go down over time as manufacturing improves
That is not always true though. If we look at DRAM. There is a reason why we are still stuck with 8GB DRAM as entry level while 99.99999% of tech community including HN has been stating DRAM is cheap and it is only going to be cheaper for more than a decade. The cost to produce DRAM has only dropped 10-20% over the past decade, while pricing fluctuate a lot as with any commodity. Microsoft knew this way back in 2006 ( or even earlier ) when they were designing Xbox.
>What manufacturing changes do you imagine would make that possible?
AFAIK, Not any time soon. You could probably read up on all the issues on thememoryguy [1] or SemiEngineering [2]. But even PLC wouldn't bring that much cost savings, if there are any. There is nothing on the roadmap for the next 5 years. Not even in R&D Labs which suggest it may not even happen in 2030. That is why I am hopping for some news, some progress like [3].
DRAM markets have been notoriously price fixed in the past[1], and it would not be surprising if there's still a lot of winking, nudging, and backdoor handshakes going on. The chip shortage makes it even more excusable now.
Yeah, there's a minimum volume required to store an electric charge and memory has reached it.
Global demand is collapsing due to the Great NotARecession, whatever price we reach by Christmas will be the lowest planar DRAM ever gets. So buy up all the DDR4 you need. ArF immersion tools that sit in DRAM fabs are now full amortized and memory lines are not likely to be earning much more than the marginal cost of maintenance, power and materials that they consume, any lower in price and they get turned off.
I hear good things about vertically stacked thin film transistors as a future technology, but they haven't left the lab yet.
That is not always true though. If we look at DRAM. There is a reason why we are still stuck with 8GB DRAM as entry level while 99.99999% of tech community including HN has been stating DRAM is cheap and it is only going to be cheaper for more than a decade. The cost to produce DRAM has only dropped 10-20% over the past decade, while pricing fluctuate a lot as with any commodity. Microsoft knew this way back in 2006 ( or even earlier ) when they were designing Xbox.
>What manufacturing changes do you imagine would make that possible?
AFAIK, Not any time soon. You could probably read up on all the issues on thememoryguy [1] or SemiEngineering [2]. But even PLC wouldn't bring that much cost savings, if there are any. There is nothing on the roadmap for the next 5 years. Not even in R&D Labs which suggest it may not even happen in 2030. That is why I am hopping for some news, some progress like [3].
[1] https://thememoryguy.com/how-3d-nand-makes-qlc-and-plc-feasi...
[2] https://semiengineering.com
[3] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9830513