Of course they are.
Need a quarterly boost in revenues? Manufacture a supply crisis and use it to drive up prices.
The amount of collusion in DRAM / NAND Flash / Hard Drives/ etc. is just insane.
And it's transparent too, but because these are multinational companies with manufacturing largely outside of U.S jurisdiction it is very difficult for the likes of the DOJ to go after them without making the situation even worse. (You don't want to create a "take my ball and go home" situation.)
There are about 10 different electronics / computing industries that could use some serious break-up action resulting in ~5 competitive entities per industry, but no one country wants to do it, because if they do, they could either be left without, or put their own electronics manufacturer at a disadvantage compared to the huge international competition.
Something here really needs to change. These massive electronics/computing trusts are a danger to the entire world economy, and are just playing various countries/jurisdictions against each other.
