Posted on Monday, April 07 2008 @ 1:05 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Industry sources
claim Hynix is having trouble with its 66nm production. According to the rumours yield problems resulted in 30 million defective 1Gb DDR2 memory chips, which is about 10% of the firms monthly output.
Hynix started introducing its DRAM on 66nm in the fourth quarter of 2007, but yields are failing expectations. The sources revealed that the company was recently hit by a loss of about 10% of its monthly output as a batch of 30 million 1Gb DDR2 chips were found to be defective. Amid the yields issue, Hynix is unable to fulfill its obligations to contract customers, the sources added noting that the recent announcement of price rises by rivals Elpida Memory and Samsung Electronics are the result of the production issue at Hynix.
Although DRAM contract pricing is said to have been boosted by the speculation, spot pricing is unlikely to benefit due to the relatively high inventory levels in the channel, the sources noted. Since many industry players stocked up considerable inventories during early 2008 in anticipation of a surge in pricing, a glut has emerged since prices failed to trend upward as expected.
