Of Taiwan's major DRAM makers, only Nanya Technology saw July revenues slide from June. ProMOS Technologies' revenues increased 9% on month while Powerchip Technology and Inotera Memories posted modest sales growth sequentially in the period.
ProMOS's July sales totaled NT$2.325 billion (US$73.096 million), up from NT$2.13 billion in June. The July figure also showed a 173% jump from a year earlier, when revenues dropped 76% on year to NT$853 million.
ProMOS recently introduced its first lot of wafers using Elpida Memory's 63nm (65nm-XS, Super-shrink) DRAM process, and moved the node to volume production earlier in third quarter. The company also revealed plans to allocate almost half of its chip production (one 12-inch fab with capacity of 60,000 wafers a month) to mobile RAM and specialty DRAM (SDRAM) chips starting in 2011, in a move to diversify products.
Powerchip's July sales reached NT$8.62 billion, a 0.7% growth compared to June. The company's accumulated net sales for the first seven months of 2010 were NT$51.13 billion, growing robustly from NT$10.09 billion posted a year ago.
Powerchip has ramped up production using Elpida's 63nm, which is now its major production node, VP and spokesperson Eric Tang said in a statement. Tang noted that the company's growing foundry business also helped offset recent declines of DRAM spot prices.
Nanya saw July revenues go down 2.5% on month to NT$5.1 billion. With its focus on the contract market, Nanya's sales were affected by stagnant demand.
According to the data show that 2GB DDR3 modules drifted lower to US$44 on average in the latter part of July, while same-density DDR2 parts held flat at US$40.
Market watchers expect Nanya, along with its joint venture Inotera, to see their yield and production capacity improve thanks to upcoming upgrades in process technologies. Both will migrate to 50nm-class production ahead of their domestic peers.
Inotera registered revenues of NT$3.16 billion in July, up 2.3% on month. It is on track to convert all of its chip production (two 12-inch fabs with combined monthly capacity of 130,000 wafers) to 50nm by the end of this year.