Microcontroller-based products, such as the PineTime smartwatch, PineVoice smart speaker, and Pinecil soldering iron, won't be affected, and production will continue as usual. Development on the upcoming PineTime Pro will also continue: Pine64 said its demo firmware now has basic drivers for the display, touch, motion sensing, GPS, and audio , though some issues need fixing before a pilot batch enters production. The company also hasn't ended software support for existing Linux hardware.
The AI-driven memory crunch has raised prices on everything from DDR5 kits — which have sold on eBay for more than $2,000 — to prebuilt PCs from Dell , CyberPowerPC, and Maingear. Unfortunately, Pine64 buys the single worst-supplied part in the entire NAND market. TrendForce reported in April that the eMMC/UFS segment faces the tightest supply gap of any NAND category, because its production capacity overlaps with far higher-margin enterprise SSDs, making it the last in line for supplier allocation.
Phison CEO Khein-Seng Pua said in February that 8GB eMMC modules had risen from $1.50 to $20 in a year, a 13-fold increase, and warned the shortage could shut down entire consumer electronics companies in 2026. Pine64 hasn't shut down, but a whole product category has, and it's the first named vendor to kill a lineup outright instead of repricing it.
Other small-board makers have taken the opposite route. Raspberry Pi has raised prices repeatedly , pushing the Pi 5 16GB to $205 and the 500+ to $410, while launching a 3GB Pi 4 and leaning on a stockpile of older LPDDR2 to hold prices on legacy boards. Framework followed in January , raising its desktop pricing to cover LPDDR5x costs, which, since Strix Halo boards use soldered RAM, it couldn't pass to users any other way.
Budget smartphone market collapses under the weight of memory shortages
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/pine64-halts-all-linux-device-production-until-at-least-mid-2027-as-memory-shortage-bites#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.