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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (16838)	12/15/2005 1:31:57 AM
From: etchmeister	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

DRAM makers eye high-end graphics market (According to Mercury Research, the market for high-end graphics memory is expected to grow 42% to US$1.5 billion in 2006, up from US$1.1 billion this year. Relatively small) Printer friendly Related stories Comments Email to a friend Latest news Michael McManus, DigiTimes.com, Taipei [Wednesday 14 December 2005] With the commodity DRAM market experiencing plunging prices and many DRAM suppliers already selling parts at prices below manufacturing costs, some DRAM vendors have turned their attention to specialty markets including high-end graphics and mobile applications to improve their margins. Samsung Electronics has announced that it is mass producing what it claims to be the fastest graphics memory device in the world – a 900MHz GDDR3 (Graphic Double-Data-Rate 3) DRAM – which the company says is 50% faster than its previous computer memory chips produced in large volumes. The device is already being used in Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 512 graphics cards, and ATI Technologies stated that it redesigned the memory controller in its recently announced architectures to take optimal advantage of Samsung’s high-speed memory. The 512Mbit 900MHz GDDR3 is aligned in 32 rows of 16Mbit chips, enabling high-speed 256MB and 512MB Megabyte graphics cards, a Samsung press release stated. The increased memory speeds will help high-end graphics cards produce faster animation and richer graphic textures. According to a report from Merrill Lynch, Samsung’s non-commodity DRAM business will account for more than 50% of its total DRAM revenues over the next two years, which will help Samsung enjoy a 10-20% price premium over its competitors. Infineon Technologies recently announced that its 512Mbit GDDR3 DRAM was selected by ATI for the graphics chip maker’s Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics processor for notebook PCs. The 512Mbit and 256Mbit GDDR3 DRAMs offered by Infineon are organized in 16Mbitx32 and 8Mbitx32 configurations, allowing for notebook graphics that balance the frame buffer and bus width. Infineon also claims that its trench technology offers significantly less power consumption than other DRAM at a given performance level, helping to conserve battery power. Hynix Semiconductor, on the other hand, announced the availability of its 512Mbit GDDR4 DRAM for graphics applications on December 2. Hynix will soon begin to sample its GDDR4 products to leading graphic chipset suppliers and the company plans to start mass production in early 2006. The company claims that its memory is ideal for 64-bit computer operating systems that manage vast amounts of data at once. According to Mercury Research, the market for high-end graphics memory is expected to grow 42% to US$1.5 billion in 2006, up from US$1.1 billion this year.

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (16838)	12/16/2005 12:52:07 AM
From: etchmeister	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

DRAM output growth slows in November, but the worst may be over for DDR2 (to me looks like the chipset shortage really screwed up DDR2 migration) Printer friendly Related stories Comments Email to a friend Latest news Esther Lam, DigiTimes.com, Taipei [Thursday 15 December 2005] Global DRAM output grew a slight 2.7% in November to reach 704 million 256Mbit equivalent units, representing a 57% increase in monthly output from January of this year. However, the proportion of DRAM output devoted to DDR2 production dipped last month for only the second time this year, as DRAM makers adjusted to the slow adoption rates in the market. Despite the penetration rate of DDR2 dropping to 35%, DRAMeXchange expects demand to pick up from late December as the Intel chipset shortage eases. According to various reports, an Intel chipset shortage peaked in October, and Intel has begun sourcing chipsets from ATI Technologies in order to maintain its supply of entry-level DDR2 supporting motherboards, with supply ramping through the end of this year. DRAMeXchange stated that it expects the DDR2 penetration rate in the OEM market to surpass 50% in the first quarter of 2006, although demand in the spot market will remain weak. In the first half of next year, the DDR2 segment will also get a boost from the launch of AMD’s DDR2-supporting Socket M-2 processors. However, since AMD will ship a large proportion of its DDR2-supporting CPUs to PC OEMs, it will have a limited impact on demand in the spot market, DRAMeXchange reasoned. Consumers have been skeptical of the performance of DDR2 compared with DDR, and memory module houses have remained conservative as well. Despite DDR2 currently being priced lower than comparative DDR parts, the related DDR2 production costs are higher, sources explained.