Prices of standard DRAM chips are to remain steady this month, as a Japan-South Korea trade dispute and the year-end shopping season would stimulate demand and improve inventories, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said last week.
PC makers have increased DRAM orders as Japan’s restrictions on key semiconductor material exports to South Korea might disrupt chip production and supply, the Taipei-based researcher said in a report.
Restocking demand in the third quarter was stronger than expected as PC and electronics makers rushed to buy DRAM chips before a new round of US tariffs on Chinese goods takes effect in December, giving support to DRAM prices, TrendForce said.
“DRAM suppliers became firmer when negotiating prices [for this month] as they found a positive shift in the demand-supply situation,” TrendForce said.
As a result, DRAM chip prices could stabilize in the third quarter, reversing a quarters-long decline, it said.
The average contract price for mainstream PC DRAM chips was flat at US$25.50 per unit in August, showing rare stability since a freefall of prices in the second half of last year, TrendForce said.
Positive outlook for the DRAM industry next year also helped bolster prices, the report said.
Global DRAM output is forecast to grow 12.5 percent annually next year, the slowest pace in the past decade as major suppliers cut capital expenditure to curb production and maintain profitability, the report said.
The top three DRAM chipmakers — Samsung Electronics Co, SK Hynix Inc and Micron Technology Inc — are each to reduce capital spending by at least 10 percent next year, with Samsung planning to maintain its total DRAM capacity at a similar level to this year, TrendForce said.
Major suppliers would use new facilities and equipment to upgrade technology rather than boost capacity, it said.
Meanwhile, China remains a distant threat next year, as Chinese chipmakers would account for less than 3 percent of global DRAM output, TrendForce said in the report.
ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc (CXMT, 合肥長鑫存儲) has already begun small-scale production. The Chinese chipmaker is turning out DDR4 8 gigabit (Gb) chips as its initial product and there is a possibility that it will launch its own LPDDR4 8Gb chips in the first half of next year as it works toward volume production, TrendForce said.
Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co (福建晉華) is smaller in scale and by the end of next year will be producing fewer than 10,000 wafers a month, the researcher said.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS