
DRam fabs shaken by Taiwan quake
Thousands of chips go up in smoke
DRam fabrication plants in Taiwan were hit hard during the earthquake on 31 March, despite initial reports claiming that damage had been minimal.
Analysts believe that 20 to 30 per cent of DRam production was lost for a week to 10 days. This was due to internal furnace ruptures, which interrupted the production process.
Major DRam manufacturers affected were Nanya Technologies, Winbound Electronics, Powerchip Semiconductor Corporation and ProMOS Technologies.
Powerchip reported damage to 20 furnaces, which resulted in the loss of 5,000 to 6,000 chips, at a cost of around $300 each.
Nanya was said to have lost around 10,000 chips, Winbound between 5,000 and 6,000 and ProMOS 3,000 to 4,000.
But although DRam spot prices rose as a result of the earthquake, fears of chip shortages next month have been allayed.
The manufacturers are said to have accelerated production and Nanya has confirmed that its shipments will continue on schedule.
V3 Latest
TSMC starts high volume production of 7nm chips
Claims to have "the most competitive logic density" in the industry
Dell unveils Precision 5530 2-in-1 mobile workstation with Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL graphics
Dell's high-end mobile workstations upgraded with Intel Coffee Lake CPUs
Europol coordinates close down of 'world's biggest' DDoS-for-hire service
Webstresser admins were also arrested in the UK, Croatia, Canada and Serbia
Almost 90 per cent of UK websites suffer from 'serious' security flaws
Security firm claims that 117,638 sites out of 135,035 analysed contain serious security flaws