DRAM chip suppliers are all struggling with falling chip prices caused by oversupply, industry sources have observed, adding that the market outlook for the rest of 2011 remains unclear.
Spot quotes for mainstream 2Gb DDR3 have plunged to below US$1 with prices for same-density effectively tested (eTT) chips approaching US$0.70, the sources learned. The ongoing downward trend is unlikely to reverse in the foreseeable future, the sources said.
Inadequate demand has been the major cause of the present market downturn, the sources pointed out. In addition to weak PC sales, demand for emerging applications such as tablet PCs and cloud servers is not large enough to keep up with supply growth, the sources said.
Industry leader Samsung Electronics has been accelerating its shift to 20nm-class process technology to drive down production costs and mitigate ongoing problems in the DRAM industry, the sources indicated.
Other fellow DRAM companies continue to pursue the latest technological advances, and are diversifying their product lines as lowering operating costs and improving production efficiencies is now a must, the sources said.