Insatiable demand pushes DRam market

The future looks bright for the global DRam market, with recovering demand and controlled bit supply combining to give the sector a welcome boost over the next two years.

According to IDC, memory sales will enjoy more than 40 per cent compound annual growth, driven mainly by a PC replacement cycle and the introduction of next-generation microprocessors.

The analyst firm predicts that the mobile devices sector, such as phones and smart handheld devices, will experience bit growth that tops other applications.

PCs will also add to the demand, with desktops and laptops beginning to consume more than 1GB of main memory on average in 2007.

But IDC's latest DRam market forecast goes on to predict that oversupply caused by expanding production from 12-inch fabs will pull the market down again after 2005.

Despite this mid-term downturn, IDC said that the DRam market will grow from $16.5bn in revenue in 2003 to $24.7bn in 2007.

In terms of memory types, Double Data Rate (DDR) is expected to live on through multiple generations, with DDR II becoming the next mainstream memory interface. Its share of the market will peak at over 70 per cent in 2007.

DDR III will, according to IDC's estimates, then succeed DDR II. Expanded Data Rate, a successor to RDRam and a potential competitor to the DDR memory used in PCs, will begin to emerge in consumer and networking applications in 2004.

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