Chip manufacturers switch to memory particles in the second half

In September 2010, tablet PC sales grew rapidly due to over-hype in the market and tablet PCs sought after by consumers. In addition, the rapid development of smart phones has also driven the demand for MobileRAM. Therefore, memory manufacturers have concentrated their production capacity on MobileRAM products. MobileRAM has been ramping up production in a short period of time. Traditional PC DRAM production capacity has declined, and memory prices have gradually increased. The price of 2GB DDR3-1333 memory has risen to 160 yuan since the Japanese earthquake. .

With the madness of the tablet computer it was cold. Tablet PCs have not been able to replace PCs and laptops. With the in-depth understanding of tablet PCs, the inherent deficiencies of tablet PCs have gradually emerged. The tablet PC market has gradually entered a downturn and user demand continues to decrease, resulting in a serious supply of Mobile RAM. More than demand. Due to the decrease in customer orders for Apple Tablet PCs, its largest supplier, Erbium, will be the first victim to be forced to reduce the production of MobileRAM and transfer some of the production capacity of the 12-inch plant in Hiroshima to the production of PCDRAM. This alarms the oversupply of MobileRAM. .

In addition to the tablet computer being deeply affected, the smart phone market is also affected by the decrease in demand and sales. With the decline of the tablet and mobile phone markets, DRAM makers quickly adjusted their production lines and shifted their MobileRAM capacity to PCDRAM.

However, the desktop memory industry is extremely fierce. Affected by the economic downturn in Europe, America and China, the computer market has continued to slump. The Japanese market, which is one of the markets with the highest demand for computer products in the world, has been plunged into a more severe economic recession due to the 311 earthquake. , so that the cold computer market in the world worse. The overall memory demand has shrunk sharply. The price of DDR3 memory has been repeatedly bottomed out and the lowest price has been frequently refreshed.

All indications indicate that the market's weather vane has shifted from a vendor seller to a consumer buyer, and the memory demand in the second half of the year is still not good.

The industry generally believes that: once the 2GBDDR3 module memory particles fell below the $1.5 mark, even with the most advanced 40nm manufacturing process, the memory manufacturers are still in a loss-making state, especially Taiwanese memory particles manufacturers financing loans blocked, difficult to put into production 40nm machine The equipment is running, so the manufacturing cost is high and the situation is even less optimistic.

In addition, DRAM manufacturing companies currently carrying heavy bank debt are facing embarrassing situations and urgently need to clear the funds for repatriation and repay the bank principal. The first reaction of such DRAM manufacturing companies is to reduce the price in exchange for sales, and the overall price of memory is pulled down, making the profit margin of the memory constantly decreasing, and even reducing the cost.

The conversion of DRAM makers to memory chips has aggravated market saturation, resulting in a severe overcapacity and a short-term decline in memory prices. At present, the third quarter has not yet arrived, the market still has variables, the first is to see whether China's summer holiday promotion effectively pull the memory demand; Second, AMD's "bulldozer" in the low-end product performance is to force, and AMD's product price positioning And so on, and third, whether the global economic situation in Europe, America, Japan, and China can improve. As far as the various bad conditions of the memory industry are concerned, it is not impossible to fall below the cost price. Zhongguancun Online will pay close attention to the changes in memory prices.