TSMC Shares Jumped 6% on Report of Nvidia-Backed DRAM Plans

TSMC's New York-listed shares rose 6.26% on November 6, 2026, one day after a 10.78% plunge to $353.10. The trigger was a report, attributed to two people with direct knowledge, that TSMC has begun drawing up plans to make vertically stacked DRAM at the request of its largest customer, NVIDIA. Neither company has confirmed the project. TSMC does not comment on market speculation, and nothing has been signed or announced.

The report arrived after Taiwan's market had closed, so U.S. trading absorbed the news first. The ADR topped out at a 7.7% intraday gain before settling. It still finished the week down 7.61%.

What does the report actually claim?

TSMC is reportedly weighing two paths: build new fabs or buy and retool an existing site. The template cited is Micron's $1.8 billion purchase of a Powerchip fab in Taiwan in March.

The effort is reportedly led by Hsu Kuo-chin, a TSMC vice president who runs advanced packaging and previously ran Micron's regional operations. His background fits the task. It does not make the task imminent.

Vertically stacked DRAM places memory cells on top of one another within a single chip. High-bandwidth memory is a different product that stacks whole memory chips. TSMC has not disclosed a potential investment amount or a production start date, and management did not discuss memory manufacturing on its October 15 earnings call. Its 2026 capital budget already stands at $60 billion to $64 billion; any memory fab would sit on top of that.

Why does Nvidia want a second supplier?

NVIDIA's supply obligations reached $279.0 billion, mostly for memory destined for the Vera Rubin platform. Its CFO said: "The magnitude of the price increase has exceeded our prior expectations." A TSMC memory operation would give NVIDIA leverage over incumbent memory makers, though no new supply would arrive in time to affect results for years.

The broader chip group rebounded alongside TSMC. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF rose 3.52%, NVIDIA gained 2.78% to $186.64, and Micron added 5.12%. Micron's weekly loss of 22.01% stemmed from the earlier selloff, not from the report. Micron forecasts $61.5 billion in quarterly revenue and is already co-designing HBM4E with NVIDIA.

How far are patents from production?

TSMC holds patents on vertical DRAM, but patents are not wafers. The stated difficulty is moving to mass production with almost no defects, a bar Samsung, SK hynix and Micron set through years of volume manufacturing in a business that swings between booms and busts.

Memory has historically carried thinner margins than leading-edge logic. TSMC posted a 66.4% gross margin last quarter. New capacity also takes time: Micron expects first wafers from its new Idaho fab in mid-calendar 2027 and says meaningful supply growth will take several more quarters after that.

What do the fundamentals say?

The logic business remains the core of the investment case. TSMC guides fourth-quarter revenue of $52.3 billion to $54.3 billion, up from $46.72 billion, and expects full-year 2026 growth of about 44%. The memory report is a long-term possibility not priced into those numbers.

Context tempers the rally. Even after the rebound, the ADR is down 20.54% over one month, so the selloff did more to lower the price than the report did to lift it.

Two dates will test whether the gain holds. TSMC reports October sales on November 10, and NVIDIA is expected to report earnings on November 17. If the ADR falls back below $353.10, Friday's report-driven gain will have evaporated.