In what is a testament to the craziness of the contemporary AI buildout age, a square millimeter of 1b DRAM is now costlier than a similar-sized TSMC N2 wafer, despite the fact that the latter is much more difficult to fabricate.
A square millimeter of 1b DRAM wafer costs $0.654, while TSMC's N2 wafer costs $0.42 per square millimeter
According to Kernel Insight and as quoted by ZDNet, the price of a 300 millimeter TSMC N3 (3nm) wafer is around $20,000, while the N2 wafer of the same size goes for around $30,000. This then equates to a per square millimeter price of $0.283 for N3 and $0.424 for N2.
Next, 1b DRAM has a bit density of 0.436 Gb per square millimeter. At a reference price of $1.50 per Gb, this equates to a cost of around $0.654 per square millimeter, which is around 54 percent more expensive than TSMC's equal-sized N2 wafer.
Do note that, on September 21, DRAM Exchange disclosed a price of $24.80 for a 16 Gb DDR5 eTT, which equates to around $1.55 per Gb. So, for all intents and purposes, the $1.50 per Gb reference price is an appropriate estimate.
In fact, even the multi-generations old 1z DRAM is also nearly equivalent to TSMC's cutting-edge node on a per square mill...