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IC Insights has predicted that DRAM prices will continue to increase this year:
According to IC Insights, DRAM prices will continue to increase even though they have more than doubled (+111%) over the last 12 months. IC Insights predicts that by the end of the calendar year DRAM's price per bit will have jumped a record 40% (or more).
[...] Of course, the record pricing levels are great for our friends at the major foundries. Samsung, Micron, and Sk Hynix are also raking in their own record profits and enjoying healthy margins. We have both DRAM and NAND shortages occurring at the same time, which is great for the foundries, and unless a player breaks ranks to gain market share, we can expect more foot-dragging before any of the foundries increases output.
The booming mobile industry and server markets are exacerbating the issue, so you would expect that the fabs would boost DRAM output. Unfortunately, the three primary fabs (Micron bought Elpida, reducing the number of players) don't share the same vision.
IC Insights indicates that Micron will not increase production capacity, instead relying upon improvements in yields and shrinking down to smaller nodes to boost its DRAM bit output. Sk Hynix has expressed its desire to boost DRAM output but hasn't set a firm timeline for fab expansion (unlikely to occur in the near term). Samsung is as tight-lipped as usual, so we aren't sure of its intentions.
In the 1980s there were 23 major DRAM suppliers, but cutthroat pricing and continual oversupplies eventually led to the wave of consolidation that left us with the current three suppliers.
Previously:
December 2015: DDR4 Memory Prices Declined 40% in 6 Months
May 2017:
DRAM Price Surge Continues
Samsung Set to Outpace Intel in Semiconductor Revenues
July 2017:
Micron Temporarily Suspends Operation of DRAM Production Facility
Samsung Increases Production of 8 GB High Bandwidth Memory 2.0 Stacks
August 2017:
DRAM Prices Continue to Climb
Samsung & SK Hynix Graphics Memory Prices Increase Over 30% In August
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jelizondo on Tuesday September 19 2017, @08:27PM (4 children)
The market is working as advertised! Just like evolution, the market prunes the inefficient, the lazy and the unfortunate leaving just one or two players, which then dominate the market and can do whatever they please. (I know there are three players now in this market, watch it shrink to maybe two, perhaps one.)
Is this good for consumers?
Before answering think about Microsoft, the most ruthless competitor currently in the market: it eliminated Borland, Lotus, Netscape, WordPerfect and many others to coronate itself king of the hill; exactly as the free market allows.
Is a world full of Microsofts worth an unrestricted market or should we put some restrictions to promote diversity and competition?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday September 19 2017, @08:46PM
Do not worry, citizen, the OCP has new products to ensure your safety.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @10:34PM (2 children)
You want a monopoly known as "government" to prevent monopolies.
That just doesn't make sense.
I'll stick with the Free Market, thanks; at least under a cultural appreciation for the free market, people have a way to route around bad centralization.
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Wednesday September 20 2017, @02:50AM (1 child)
I prefer a monopoly on which everyone has influence to a monopoly on which only those with money have influence.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 20 2017, @04:57AM
Surely, you're not suggesting such a government has ever existed.