With its relatively robust market growth and increasing usage in hot products like smartphones and media tablets, mobile DRAM is playing a more prominent role in the memory business - including acting as a key factor in Micron Technology's recent acquisition of Elpida Memory.

Mobile DRAM is set to hit a record US$6.56 billion in revenues this year, up 10% from US$5.98 billion in 2011.This compares to 3% revenue growth for standard DRAM.

"The mobile DRAM segment is achieving impressive growth as mobile operating systems, streaming apps and games require more memory to handle sophisticated tasks," said Ryan Chien, analyst for memory & storage at IHS. "Crucial features like multitasking, media decoding and decompression, data synchronization and background operations are all driving DRAM needs - and new phones and tablets are meeting those needs with their rise in mobile DRAM densities."

Dissections conducted by IHS' teardown analysis service also confirm a stunning rise in average densities of mobile DRAM in wireless devices, the research firm indicated.

Mobile DRAM density in smartphones, for instance, jumped from 2.28 gigabits (Gb) in the second quarter of 2010 to 5.85Gb in the second quarter of 2012. The expansion is even greater in tablets, with the mobile DRAM average density soaring fourfold during the same period from 2.00Gb to 8.33Gb.

The extraordinary accomplishment of mobile DRAM is in marked contrast to the performance of the other memory segments, including standard DRAM used in desktop and notebook computers. Owing to the lagging sales of PC computing behind handsets and tablets, revenue growth for standard DRAM in 2012 is anticipated to be weak.

And while mobile DRAM average selling prices have been falling over time in line with the overall memory space, prices remain relatively firm for mobile DRAM chips because of a number of factors, including high demand, a smaller supply base and healthy density growth.

The importance of mobile DRAM is also clear in the acquisition in July by Micron of Elpida, IHS observed. While both companies earned similar DRAM revenues in the first quarter of 2012 - US$759 million for Micron and US$780 for Elpida - the mobile DRAM revenue of Elpida at US$218 million was double that the US$106 million for Micron.

"Such a disparity between the acquired and the buyer highlights a competitive differentiator for Elpida," Chien continued. "Despite its financial ruin, Elpida in the first quarter had an outsized portion - nearly 20% market share - of the total mobile DRAM industry revenues of US$1.8 billion. The increasing ubiquity of mobile DRAM projected for the next few years also makes the high-flying memory segment the most important factor in Micron's US$2.5 billion purchase, especially as the Boise, Idaho, outfit aims to counter the current market dominance of the South Korean giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix Semiconductor."

Given the power efficiency and increasing affordability of mobile DRAM, its importance to the ecosystem of mobile devices cannot be overstated, IHS said. Mobile DRAM will also continue to become more efficient, enabling superior product functionality and an even larger total available market in the future, with its use in new ultrathin computers a natural next step.