DRAM continues to slide
September 22, 1997, Issue: 1076
Section: News
By Andrew MacLellan
Silicon Valley- The latest reading of the Buyers' Barometer indicates a continued incremental price drop in all commodity DRAM densities, according to research from Advanced Forecasting Inc., Cupertino, Calif. Meanwhile, mix issues loom large for vendors entering the fourth quarter.
Sources in the contract market point to a shortage of 1-Mx16 DRAM parts. That shortage was attributed to suppliers that sought to overcome an earlier shortage of 4-Mx4 parts and diverted too much production from other configurations, according to W. Keith McDonald, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Samsung Semiconductor Inc., San Jose.
On the spot market, a sudden influx of certain 16-Mbit configurations created a flurry of activity in recent weeks, said Kristen McNeil, a senior commodity trader at the American IC Exchange, Aliso Viejo, Calif. "What we've seen in the past couple of weeks is 16 Mbit domestically responding to the overseas markets on two fronts," she said.
In what may foretell the start of the annual fourth-quarter run on commodity memory parts, McNeil reported that several third-tier suppliers in Taiwan recently loosed a large supply of low-priced 1-Mx16 and 4-Mx4 EDO and fast-page standard DRAM on the market. The event placed additional pressure on standard SOJ-packaged 16-Mbit DRAM prices.
The increased availability of chips eventually created a temporary shortage of 4-Mx4 standard DRAM as a number of third-party memory module manufacturers snatched up the low-priced discrete parts in anticipation of strong fourth-quarter demand. The swing was short-lived, however, as supply returned and brought 4-Mx4 EDO and fast-page prices down by about 6 cents in the last week, McNeil said.
On other fronts, the shift from EDO and fast-page DRAM to the synchronous generation is catching fire and should continue unabated through the year, according to industry executives.
"Emotionally, 16-Mbit SDRAM has been somewhat of a roller coaster, but it's finally starting to take hold consistently," said Cecil Conkle, assistant vice president of DRAM marketing at Mitsubishi Electronics America Inc.'s Electronic Device group. "By the fourth quarter several of our major customers will be more than 50% SDRAM, and 64-Mbit demand is even stronger."
Here, too, diverse OEM demand will force suppliers to weigh carefully the pace of transition to an SDRAM architecture, although the move is well under way, said Will Mulhern, product marketing manager at NEC Electronics Inc., Santa Clara, Calif.
"We've positioned ourselves more to the leading-edge technology, and we see ourselves as pretty strong in SDRAM," Mulhern said. "Earlier this year, we were ahead in this area, and we think that's working to our advantage now."
Copyright (c) 1997 CMP Media Inc. |
