Military tensions on the Korean peninsula continued lifting NAND flash price in the spot market in the week from November 29-Dec 3, according to inSpectrum.
Spot price of a 16Gb MLC NAND flash chip increase by 2% to US$3.92 last week. The price of the same architecture 32Gb chips also saw a slight rise of 1% to US$5.89.
Concerned about insufficient supply amid the Korea tensions, many traders were motivated to source more chips from the market, inSpectrum said. The lowest pricing of 32Gb MLC chips from major vendors climbed to US$4 last week, up from about US$3.7 in the previous week, inSpectrum said.
ASP for mainstream DRAM chips, however, dropped sharply due to weak demand. As of the noon session of Dec 3, spot pricing for 1Gb DDR2 averaged US$1.34, representing a 7% drop. Spot pricing for 1Gb DDR3 also decreased by 5% to US$1.25, according to inSpectrum.
The DRAM spot prices were also impacted by the sinking quotes in the contract market. The mainstream 2GB DDR3 module ASP in the contract market went down about 9% to the US$22.50 range in the second half of November, inSpectrum pointed out.
Vendors have turned aggressive in cutting prices in attempts to spur content growth in the coming quarter, the research firm added.