TrendForce: NAND Flash shortage – prices surge over 60%

According to research firm TrendForce, the shortage of NAND Flash wafers deepened significantly in November 2025. Strong demand, especially from AI and enterprise SSDs, is meeting a supply that is increasingly focused on high-margin products; older production processes (Legacy Nodes) are being phased out in many cases. As a result, contract prices for many wafer categories rose month-on-month by 20% to over 60%. TrendForce reports that the shortage particularly affected 1 TB TLC wafers. The 512 GB TLC category saw the largest price increase among all listed products, exceeding 65%. 256 GB TLC wafers also became significantly more expensive. Increased price pressure is also observable for QLC and MLC, driven by growing demand from enterprises and cold storage applications. TrendForce forecasts the tight situation will not improve soon—a significant supply improvement is not expected before December 2025. For memory module manufacturers and designers, this means high price increases and limited supply availability should be expected in 2026. This situation could potentially lead to longer order lead times and increased costs for consumer and industrial products