Japan’s curbs on key semiconductor material exports to South Korea would not significantly boost the prices of memory chips in the short term, due to chipmakers’ high inventories, market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report yesterday.
Memorychip makers have seen chip prices plunging for the past three quarters due to oversupply and sluggish end product demand, TrendForce said.
The Japan-South Korea dispute led to hikes in the prices of DRAM modules, due to increasingly tight supply of key materials used in the manufacturing of semiconductors, smartphones and flat panels, the Taipei-based firm said.
However, “the possibility is slim that such disputes will trigger a short-term, structural reversal of supply and demand,” since Japan has only lengthened the export procedures for photoresist, hydrogen fluoride and etching gas to South Korea, but did not ban them altogether, the report said.
High inventories could serve as a buffer, TrendForce implied.
As DRAM suppliers generally have more than three months of chips in stock, prices for DRAM chips used in PCs, servers and handsets are likely to see an extended decline at the beginning of this quarter, TrendForce said.
“No signs of reversal are found as of present,” it said. “The possibility of a structural reversal of supply and demand in the DRAM market should be slim.”
On the NAND flash front, prices are to increase this month, as supply tightened amid Japan’s export controls and Toshiba Memory Corp’s production loss from a brief power outage last month, the report said.
However, the price increases would be short-lived, given that NAND flash chip suppliers usually keep two to three months of chips in their inventories, the report said.
In the long run, NAND flash memorychip makers face downward price pressure, TrendForce said.
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it plans to double investment in data center-related technologies, including advanced packaging and high-speed interconnect technologies, to broaden the new business’ customer and service portfolios. The chip designer is redirecting its resources to data centers, mainly designing application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for cloud service providers. The data center business is forecast to lead growth in the next three years and become the company’s second-biggest revenue source, replacing chips used in smart devices, MediaTek president Joe Chen (陳冠州) told a media event in Taipei. “Three or four years
Until US President Donald Trump’s return a year ago, when the EU talked about cutting economic dependency on foreign powers — it was understood to mean China, but now Brussels has US tech in its sights. As Trump ramps up his threats — from strong-arming Europe on trade to pushing to seize Greenland — concern has grown that the unpredictable leader could, should he so wish, plunge the bloc into digital darkness. Since Trump’s Greenland climbdown, top officials have stepped up warnings that the EU is dangerously exposed to geopolitical shocks and must work toward strategic independence — in defense, energy and
Motorists ride past a mural along a street in Varanasi, India, yesterday.
For the second year in a row, a Brazilian movie has wowed international audiences and critics, securing multiple Oscar nominations and drawing fresh interest in the Latin American giant’s film industry. Experts say the success of The Secret Agent, which has won four Oscar nominations, a year after I Am Still Here won Brazil its first Oscar, is no fluke, with a bit of a push from the country’s political climate. “This is neither a coincidence nor a miracle. It is the result of a lot of work, consistent policies, and, of course, talent,” Ilda Santiago, director of the Rio International Film
RSS