DRAM revenue up 65 percent year-over-year

Prices of DDR4 memory increased significantly since mid-2016 as the market entered a severe undersupply situation. The result is that DRAM revenue is booming and all the DRAM makers are making a lot more profit.

IC Insights projects DRAM revenue will come in at an all-time high of $21.1 billion this quarter, a massive 65 percent more than Q4 2016. The agency says this is the strongest growth in the DRAM market since 1994!

DRAM sales posted fresh all-time highs in each quarter of 2017 and the outlook for the immediate future looks bright.

IC Insights said the booming demand this year has resulted from the combination of a constrained supply of DRAM due to a lack of fab expansion and yield difficulties at sub-20nm process nodes, combined with high demand for high-performance DRAM from gaming systems and data center-based server applications and increased average content for mobile DRAM used in smartphones.

This year will mark the fourth time since 1993 that DRAM sales have grown by more than 50 percent in a year. Between 1993 and this year, the market has grown by an average of 13 percent per year, according to IC Insights.

However, IC Insights predicts the end of this boom and bust cycle may be coming nearer. In the not-too distant future, pricing is likely to swing far too the other way if too much new production capacity hits the market.