Memory chip prices remain weak
/v3-uk/news/2010257/memory-chip-prices-remain-weak
21 Jan 2008, Simon Burns in Taipei , V3
Buyers of memory chips can look forward to stable or falling prices as supply continues to outstrip demand, analysts in Japan say.
DRam prices remain weak and are still well below cash costs throughout the industry, according to analysts from Nomura Securities.
The oversupply will continue as manufacturers invest in upgraded production facilities. Despite this, prices have remained stable during the past two months.
Meanwhile, spot market prices of Nand Flash memory chips have plummeted during the same period, down more than 25 per cent for 8Gb chips and 34.4 per cent for the older and cheaper 4Gb chips.
Component prices typically fall towards the end of the year as consumer electronics manufacturers wind down production after the Christmas season.
For some other chip types, such as logic chips, the outlook is more positive. Excluding DRam, semiconductor shipment volume rose seven per cent in November 2007.
The US sub-prime loan crisis is already having an effect on chip companies as investors sell off stocks that are particularly sensitive to economic growth and interest rate trends.
A few firms could benefit from a shift in investment funds, however, according to Nomura.
"We think that semiconductors with energy-saving properties or other promising characteristics are likely to post growth well in excess of the semiconductor market average," the company reported.
On this basis, Nomura is particularly optimistic about prospects for Toshiba, Mitsubishi Electric and Elpida Memory, among other Japanese semiconductor makers.
Do you agree?
Curious of Tunbridge Wells
Why are memory modules not increasing in size? In the old days, there always seemed to be a trickle effect upwards, that as one
memory size became common, it became cheap and memory modules of twice the size became the commodity item at the high price end of the market. Thus 64 Meg modules replaced 32 Meg modules, 128 Meg modules replaced 64 Meg modules and so on. Now we seem to have been stuck with 1 Gig, and recently 2 Gig modules for a long time. Where are the 4 Gig and 8 Gig modules to replace them? I see motherboards that are capable of using 4 Gig chips
(for example the Asus P5ND-SE) and operating systems that can use 16 Gig+ but the hardware/memory makers are not meeting that ability, and are not making 4/8 Gig chips at a premium price. Please can someone explain why?
Thank You
Colin
Posted by Colin, 04 Feb 2008
Windows Vista increases memory module prices
Most people are using 32-bit operating systems (this includes most Windows XP and Vista users). These 32-bit OS's can only use 4GB of DRAM, that's the absolute maximum.
From that maximum 4GB you have to subtract the memory used by the graphic card (at least 256MB, probably 512MB or more), because it shares that limited 32 bits of address space. Also WiinXP can't use more than 2GB by default. So the maximum DRAM most people can use without wasting it is 2 to 3.5 GB
So 2GB and 4GB modules don't have a big market. This means prices are high compared to the more popular 1GB modules, and they can be hard to find for consumers (no retailer/distributor wants to hold on to memory stock for any longer than necessary, because the price is always falling - if they don't sell it within a month, their profit margin might be gone).
Posted by Barton F, 08 Feb 2008