Samsung expects `explosive' growth
THE CHIPS ARE UP: The long downturn in the memory market looks to be turning around, with South Korea's top two DRAM makers saying they expect better days ahead
Samsung Electronics Co, the world's largest microchip maker, has forecast explosive growth for memory devices as a new technological revolution starts.
The South Korean firm's memory division president Hwang Chang-gyu said nearly all major electronic systems would be transformed to "an all-digital format" by 2005, causing explosive growth for solid-state memory devices.
Growth in memory demand is now being driven by increased memory capacity in systems such as personal computers, servers and mobile phones, he told an international technology seminar in San Francisco Tuesday, Samsung said in a statement.DRAM prices
* Spot prices for 128-megabit DRAM now stand at around US$4, a four-fold increase from last November.
* Hynix yesterday announced it had raised contract prices for the 128Mbit SDRAM chips it sells to its long-term strategic customers by about 20 percent to 25 percent to US$4 each.
* With the higher spot and contract prices, both Hynix and Samsung expect to be profitable soon.
"The growth curve will begin to skyrocket in the year 2005," he said, adding memory consumption would expand from increased PC functions, game product applications and new generation mobile phones with video capabilities.
"From 2005 to 2010, digital televisions, home networking systems and other digital consumer electronic products are expected to become commonplace, boosting memory consumption sharply."
Samsung, which controlled 27 percent of the global microchip market last year in sales terms, has raised prices of DRAM chips.
Hwang suggested memory sales would enter a new high growth phase of 20 percent every year due to the digital revolution that would have major repercussions for the chip industry.
He also forecast a change in memory storage media saying the use of solid-state memory cards currently used in digital cameras and MP3 players would expand to include all digital products.
"Around 2005, digital video, for example, will be stored in 5-Gigabyte memory cards, and memory cards will completely replace CDs and other rotating optical media sometime thereafter," he said.
Memory, which currently runs at 400MHz or less, will increase in speed almost fourfold to reach 1.5GHz by 2010, with storage density growing by 80 times, he said.
Memory functions evolves to "fusion memory," a total memory solution, boosting all the system functions users would want, he said.
Fusion memory will integrate the high capacity of DRAM, the high speed of SRAM, and the non-volatile storage capability of Flash memory plus a logic element, he said.
The paradigm will change to "one based on a memory perspective that accommodates diverse users," he said.
Hwang's theory represents a departure from the previous view that semiconductor technology and use were primarily developed around CPU.
taipeitimes.com |
