Posted on Friday, March 30 2007 @ 8:31 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
At a mobile solution forum in Taiwan,
Samsung said the overall memory market faces positive prospects for the second half of 2007. They predict DRAM demand will warm up but also say severe NAND flash memory shortages are expected in the same timeframe.
The current weakness in the DRAM market is a reflection of oversupply, and demand should warm up again in the second half of 2007 due to extending influence from Windows Vista, Hwang said. During a previous technology forum held by Merrill Lynch at Taiwan, Samsung projected that average DRAM content per box should enjoy a 50% on year growth in 2007, beating the company's previous estimate of 46%.
Projected average memory per system will ramp up to 1.3GB after the third quarter of 2007, according to Samsung. The company also expects seeing its prices remain firm amid anticipated cost reductions from advancement to 68nm DRAM production.
DRAM applications will no longer be confined to PC and will further extend to more consumer electronics, which indicates considerable DRAM demand, Hwang stressed at the forum. The company has previously projected aggressive demand fueled by handheld applications and digital TV.
The NAND flash market, on the other hand, is showing stronger signs of stabilizing as witnessed in the recent more stable spot prices, Hwang said. Additionally, the considerable demand from Apple's iPhone, the growing number of high-density MP3 players (4-8GB), and handsets with built-in memory should fuel NAND flash demand substantially. A severe shortage is likely to arrive in the second half of the year, he highlighted.
