Methodology

• Freeze scope: quarterly and year-end target periods only, future periods only, cost and supply metrics only — never securities price targets. N2/2nm series are excluded at the freeze layer.
• Write-once: a database trigger rejects any edit to a frozen prediction; grading fields can be set exactly once. Corrections to our live models never rewrite a frozen vintage.
• Grading: a matured row is scored only against admissible published benchmark observations — the same memory generation as the series (an HBM3E forecast is never scored against HBM3 or HBM4 readings), the same price basis its model version declares (a per-stack contract price is never scored against a manufacturing cost or a blended average), a delivery period overlapping the target quarter (not merely published during it), and an external source: at least two independent hosts, one reading each, never our own pages or constants. The realized value is their median. Inside the frozen low–high band = correct; within 30% of the mid = partial; beyond = incorrect. With fewer than two admissible readings the row stays ungraded and is retried at the next monthly run.
• Price basis by model version: the HBM pricing model v1.0 never stated which price its $/GB forecasts are. On 2026-10-04, before any v1.0 row was graded and while no reading yet carried a basis tag, we ruled its HBM3E forecasts a revenue-implied average and its HBM4 forecasts a per-stack contract price. v1.1 states a per-stack contract price for both. A ruled row is gradeable, not graded: it still needs two admissible readings on its own basis.
• Not gradeable yet: a model version is graded only once it declares which price its forecasts are. Series without a mapped benchmark (CoWoS total capacity, DDR4 8Gb today) stay ungraded rather than being scored against a proxy.
• Machine-readable: /api/v1/track-record (JSON, public, full fidelity) and the get_track_record MCP tool.

Looking for what other organizations predicted? Third-party forecast vintages (TrendForce, WSTS, company guidance) are archived — not graded — at /data/forecast-vintages.