A decline in contract prices of computer memory chips, or DRAM, is expected to accelerate next quarter as demand for electronics such as computers falls short of market expectation, Taipei-based research firm TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday.
The price is expected to fall by 20 percent this quarter from last quarter, TrendForce forecast.
Increasing inventories are expected to push prices down by 13 percent this quarter from the second quarter as disappointing PC demand has forced most PC makers to cut their shipment forecasts for the second half of this year to less than 1 percent growth from an originally estimated 10 percent increase, the researcher said in its latest report.
Prices for a mainstream DDR3 are likely to plummet to US$1.5 per unit by year-end, TrendForce predicted. The DDR3 price dropped by 10.6 percent, the biggest decline in a year, to US$2.09 per unit in the first half of this month, from the previous two weeks, according to TrendForce’s latest quote.
Therefore, “DRAM companies are seeing lower profitability in the fourth quarter, compared with the first half of the year,” TrendForce said.
Looking forward, only companies rapidly migrating to cost-efficient 40-nanometer technologies would be able to make a profit in the first half of next year, it said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day