Price Gap Attracts OEMs Buying from Spot Vendors; Micron maps out NAND Flash roadmap at Memory Day
Published Jun.24, 2008
Price Gap Attracts OEMs Buying from Spot Vendors
A dismal DRAM spot price is observed last week due to: 1, PC shipments likely to fail expectation in 2Q (note that's in contrast to most current IDC forecast); 2, flurry of speculations about possible circulation of defective Samsung chips at spot market. Magnitude of price drop was relatively sharp at 5%, with price of DDR2 eTT 1Gb once dropped below US$2.
The sharp price fall is mainly driven by mentioned negative news. Industry players are generally maintaining positive outlook. Despite transaction volume was not big once price started falling; strong buying is observed when price dropped below the US$2 mark. It thus resulted a stabilized pricing. As of today, price of DDR2 eTT 1Gb managed to maintain above US$2.
In the contract market, DRAM contract prices have been appreciated by about 2.3% in 2HJune. Despite several major OEMs had special deal term in May, those smaller-scale OEMs without special deals, who have to accept the price hike, thus led to such a sequential price growth. Many DRAM makers noted that present supply is still trailing behind demand and they are unable to meet all customers’ orders. PC shipments trends and a possible shipments guidance revision will judge future DRAM price adjustment ratio.
Instead of spot price, contract price took the lead of the rally this time. If we calculate the price from the1GB & 2GB modules, the 1Gb chip contract price is US$2.38 & US$2.56 respectively. These numbers are higher than the spot price of major brand 1Gb chip price which is US$2.1, and also 17% & 27% higher than 1Gb eTT. This situation is quite different from the past DRAM price rally and mainly caused by the following factors: 1, Certain Taiwanese DRAM OEM Fab, which makes chips for spot major DRAM vendors, increased output fast in 07Q4 & 08Q1. 2, Module houses, which are the major demand in spot market, increased inventory level in March while spot price was relatively low, and slow down the buying momentum in May and June. These resulted in the spot price of 1Gb eTT remained sluggish at the US$2 range.
Since there is price gap between spot and contract, some OEMs started to buy parts from the two “spot focused” DRAM vendor. Once the purchasing quantity increase creates more outlet of spot supply, the upside pressure of spot price will be released.
Micron maps out NAND Flash roadmap at Memory Day
(IMHO a big push to copper in the cards)
Micron held its Memory Day at Taipei on June 10, 2008. Besides mapping out latest memory technology roadmap, it also vowed to continue dedicating efforts on NAND Flash development. Already having its 50nm NAND Flash under volume production, Micron will also start supplying its 34nm-made NAND Flash in 4Q08. The production roadmap signifies that IM Flash, the JV between Micron and Intel, has become head-to-head with rivals in terms of technology advancement. The company has also commented on NAND Flash industry outlook during the event.
Micron announced that its 32Gb NAND Flash wafer that is fabricated on 34nm delivers proven yields. It also indicated it would tap into high-density SSD (ranging from 32GB to 128GB) market. The company has strong anticipation about SSD market and believes that SSD will be the largest demand driver for NAND Flash in the future.
According to revealed figures from Micron, sales breakdown by regions are Americas 32%, EMEA 12% and Asia 56%. While sales contribution from Asia has surpassed Americas, the region is expected to derive strong growth potential as well.
Micron is the number-two semiconductor company in terms of IP number, meaning it is only after Intel on semiconductor development. Built on the well-established relationship with Intel, both parties are jointly developing a high-speed SLC NAND Flash technology that is slated to introduce to all 34nm-made NAND Flash chips in the future.
Currently Micron already has its monolithic 50nm NAND Flash being introduced on MLC structure, with 8Gb and 16Gb density already available. Whereas 1Gb, 2Gb and 4Gb NAND Flash chips are made on SLC structure and 8Gb on high-speed SLC structure. Micron plans to introduce its sub 30nm process nodes during 2009 and 2010 with highest density at 32Gb (SLC) and 64Gb (MLC). Micron will invest US$2bn to construct a 12-inch fab in Singapore with volume production of 32Gb NAND Flash on 34nm slated to begin in 4Q08.
Micron estimated that NAND Flash production value will hit US$25.4bn in 2008. Besides demand from MP3, PMP/UFD and memory card, the company is also positive about NAND Flash in mobile storage devices. Products such as e-MMC and real SSD thus being introduced to meet potential demand.
Of which, e-MMC is a combo of eight NAND Flash dies with MMC controller. The present thickness of this e-MMC is 1.47mm and the size is slated to shrink to 1.2mm in the future. Built on a highly-integrated design, e-MMC that helps to speed up data execution time, will help to simplify present and future NAND Flash end-product designs. The e-MMC is also compatible with MoviNAND and other e-MMC solutions.
e-MMC is currently available from 1GB to 32GB of memory density. Smartphone, PDA, MP3 player and digital camera are some of the key applications. Micron will produce 32GB e-MMC on 34nm in 2008 and 2009. The company will move the production to 2x nm in 2009 and 2010 with memory density boosting to 64GB.
Micron reiterates that it is optimistic about SSD outlook. Production value of SSD is estimated to expand from 2008’s US$959mn to 2012’s US$4.4bn, equivalent to a five folds jump. In light of the substantial production value growth, Micron has designed a series of SSDs to meet the trend.
Real SSD is built on SLC NAND Flash, that ranges of memory density from 1 to 8GB. Data read and write speed is recorded at 31MB/s and 21/s, respectively. Real SSD Client (C200) is another solution that is built on MLC NAND Flash. By supporting SATA interface, corresponding data read and write speed is 65MB/s and 35MB/s. Real SSD Performance (P200) that is built on SLC NAND delivers the same data read and write speed of 250MB/s on a SATA interface. P200 is light in weight and efficient in power consumption. As SSD has penetrates at industrial, industrial, networking and notebook, the complete SSD offering from Micron has signified its active deployment.
Besides Micron, other companies also announced their plans for NAND Flash production. Samsung will start producing 51nm 3-bit/cell MLC in 2H08, and later will upgrade from 42nm to 3Xnm producing MLC and TANOS Data Flash in 2H09. Toshiba & Sandisk will start producing 43 nm 3-bit/cell MLC NAND Flash in 1H09, and further upgrade from 43nm to 3Xnm in 2H09. Hynix will produce 48nm 3-bit/cell MLC in 2H08. Hynix & Numonyx will use 41nm to produce NAND Flash in 1H09. More positive competition within these companies will bring more innovation to this industry. |
