Considering the fact that Sandisk talked about the fact that a disproportionate amount of their inventory was low-density chips, this is particularly good news.
digitimes.com
DRAMeXchange: Demand for low-density NAND flash continues to surge
Market Intelligence, DRAMeXchange; Carrie Yu, DigiTimes.com [Wednesday 4 May 2005]
Prices continued to drop for high-density NAND flash chips (4Gbit and 8Gbit) but those for lower densities (1Gbit and 2Gbit) remained stable and prices for low-density 512Mbit chips increased.
NAND flash demand has not been as strong this quarter as it was in the first quarter, when the introduction of the iPod Shuffle in January gave a boost to MP3 player demand, while also forcing competitors (such as Creative) to lower their prices to maintain their market shares. For this quarter, demand for MP3 players and high-density memory cards has been weak although NAND flash demand has picked up for mobile phones.
The hot product last week was 512Mb NAND flash chips and spot prices for the segment increased 4% to US$5.44 due to healthy demand for applications such as memory card bundles or embedded NAND for mobile phones. Spot prices for 512Mbit chips will keep rising until supply increases. Next month, one Korean manufacture will start sampling 512Mbit at 90nm process technology, which will help balance supply and demand.
DRAM eTT prices continue to rise
Demand for eTT chips mostly came from China and the US and more players in the spot market are interested in purchasing eTT, causing prices to fluctuate from US$2.22 down to US$2.05 and then rebound back to US$2.20.
DRAM spot prices remained stable due to the offsetting effects from China’s Labor holiday and end of month billing pressure.
Last week was the week prior to China’s Labor Day holidays (from May 1 to May 10); demand surged from makers who needed to pile up stock for the long holiday, which pushed DRAM spot prices up. However, it was also the last week of April, with end of month billing pressure pushing more supply on the spot market and exerting downward pressure on DRAM prices. So, DRAM spot prices remained stable last week.
SDRAM spot demand remains sluggish
High density chips such as 256Mbit 16Mbx16 133MHz and 128Mbit 8Mbx16 133MHz remained the center of inquires last week. However, demand for low density SDRAM in the spot market is still poor.
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