Chuck,
A must read article for all interested in the Memory Technologies - DDR vs DRD. It contains Hundai's take on the DDR and DRD Memory stuff -
ebnews.com __________________________
IDC report places Hyundai in DRAM market lead
By Andrew MacLellan, Electronic Buyers' News, (12/07/99, 12:24:53 PM EDT)
Having merged with one of its principal rivals, Hyundai Electronics Industries Co. Ltd. has landed atop the DRAM market leader board, according to estimates from an industry research firm.
A preliminary report from International Data Corp., Framingham, Mass., said Hyundai, through its acquisition of LG Semicon Co. Ltd. earlier this year, is now the industry's leading supplier of the commodity memory chips, with a 23.5% market share.
The IDC study, which projects year-end 1999 results, said Micron Technology Inc., Boise, Idaho, will finish the year in second place, with a 17.6% share, while Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., which has long held the title of top supplier, will drop to third place with 16.8% of the market.
The estimates are based on unit shipments of DRAM densities equating to 64 Mbits.
Samsung executives blasted the report, claiming that even if Hyundai is manufacturing more units than any other DRAM maker, its commodity focus is yielding lower average selling prices.
Samsung's internal estimates indicate that on a revenue basis the company will continue to lead the market with a 22% share, realizing better profits by targeting high-performance applications.
"Samsung is concentrating on higher margin DRAMs-the next generation 128-Mbit chips, high performance SDRAMs for servers, workstations, high-end PCs, and notebooks," said Y.W. Lee, president of the company's chip subsidiary, Samsung Semiconductor Inc.
Hyundai executives said its top ranking stems from increased capacity and early adoption of double-date-rate SDRAM. Whereas Samsung has heavily promoted rival Direct Rambus DRAM, Hyundai said DDR SDRAM is destined to enter nearly every technology market in 2000, facing competition from Direct RDRAM only in the high-end PC sector.
According to Hyundai, a survey of more than 40 customers revealed that DDR SDRAM is the fastest growing memory interface for graphics sub-systems and servers, with additional applications within the networking, consumer electronics, and low-end PC markets coming on strong in 2000 and beyond.
The company expects Rambus memory to account for no more than 5% of the market next year, growing slowly to 8% in 2001. At the same time DDR SDRAM will comprise 10% of the market in 2000 and as much as 40% in 2001, according to David Dorrough, product marketing manager for Hyundai Electronics America, San Jose.
That estimate differs sharply from Samsung's, which shows Rambus DRAM taking 10% of the market as early as 2000. Lee said earlier this week that Direct RDRAM will account for about 20% of Samsung's manufacturing output in 2000, while DDR SDRAM will make up just 10% of production.
Even within the high-performance PC space, Hyundai said Direct RDRAM is faced with a three-fold price premium compared with the PC133 SDRAM it is designed to replace. DDR SDRAM, meanwhile, offers more bandwidth through its wider bus but carries only a 10% premium that will evaporate altogether by mid 2000, according to Dorrough.
What's more, he said, the Rambus price disparity will have the added effect of postponing adoption of the interface within the mid- and low-end PC markets.
"Customers are confused," he said. Many said they will wait for the price to come down [before shifting to Rambus]. In the past, we have never seen a memory penetrate the mainstream PC market until it reaches price parity with the previous-generation memory."
However, Lee said shortages within the memory market have caused even value-PC OEMs to buy as many Samsung DRAMs as they can, despite the company's higher ASP. "We aren't dropping our price for the low-end PC market," he said.
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Goutama |
