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posted by martyb on Tuesday January 16 2018, @03:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-about-RAM-prices? dept.

The explosive growth in the NAND flash market may be slowing down:

After a blistering year-and-a-half long surge, a sudden drop in some memory prices, followed by Samsung Electronics Co's disappointing profit estimate, is causing jitters among investors who had bet the chip boom would last at least another year.

Amid news that the market has started losing some steam - prices of high-end flash memory chips, which are widely used in smartphones, dropped nearly 5 percent in the fourth quarter - some analysts now expect the industry's growth rate will fall by more than half this year to 30 percent.

That led shares in Samsung to dip 7.5 percent last week, while its home rival SK Hynix fell 6.2 percent. But analysts say that there is unlikely to be a sudden crash, and that 2018 should be a relatively stable year for chipmakers.

The $122 billion memory chip industry has enjoyed an unprecedented boom since mid-2016, expanding nearly 70 percent in 2017 alone thanks to robust growth of smartphones and cloud services that require more powerful chips that can store more data.

Previously: Samsung Set to Outpace Intel in Semiconductor Revenues
Chaos as Toshiba Tries to Sell Memory Business
IC Insights Predicts Additional 40% Increase in DRAM Prices
Expect 20-30% Cheaper NAND in Late 2018


Original Submission

Related Stories

Samsung Set to Outpace Intel in Semiconductor Revenues 8 comments

Based on current projections for sales and NAND/DRAM pricing, Samsung's semiconductor revenues are likely to grow larger than Intel's during the second quarter of 2017. Intel has held the #1 spot in the industry since 1993:

Samsung's positioning is strengthening not just because of increased demand for RAM and flash memory, but because an ongoing NAND shortage is keeping prices high. Analysts blame a rocky transition from 2D to 3D NAND, increased demand from Chinese smartphone manufacturers, and the increasing popularity of SSDs as factors in the shortage.

On top of the RAM business, Samsung also says it's seeing solid demand for 14nm SoCs, image sensors, and other smartphone chips. The company expects its new 10nm process to keep the business growing. Samsung manufactures its own Exynos SoCs as well as some of Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips and some of the A-series chips Apple uses across its iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Apple TV lineups.

IC Insights report.

Related:
Samsung's Exynos 8895 to be the First 10nm Chip on the Market
Samsung's 10nm Chips in Mass Production, "6nm" on the Roadmap
Moore's Law: Not Dead? Intel Says its 10nm Chips Will Beat Samsung's


Original Submission

Chaos as Toshiba Tries to Sell Memory Business 15 comments

Some news outlets reported that Western Digital was close to acquiring Toshiba's memory business, but that had not been finalized as of Tuesday:

Toshiba Corp now favors a group led by Bain Capital LP and SK Hynix Inc to buy its prized semiconductor business, as it failed to bridge key gaps with its business partner and rival bidder Western Digital Corp, two people briefed on the matter said on Tuesday.

The dramatic twist in the sale process, beset by legal wrangling and revised bids, comes just a day before Toshiba's latest deadline. The Japanese conglomerate, which needs to sell the chip business to plug a huge hole in its finances, had been trying to seal a deal by Wednesday with the Western Digital group but now hopes to reach agreement with the Bain group by next week, said the sources, who declined to be identified as the talks were private.

A Toshiba spokesman said the firm could not comment on details of the talks. The parties have already missed two deadlines by Toshiba's banks, which want a deal to pump $18 billion or more into the company to pull it out of negative shareholder equity and prevent it from being delisted. Yoshimitsu Kobayashi, an external Toshiba director, told reporters earlier on Tuesday that although the deadline is important, it is also important that negotiations head in a good direction.

Apple, a buyer of Toshiba's NAND chips, reportedly threatened Western Digital with a boycott of its products if it took complete control of Toshiba's memory business. But it did offer $460 million in acquisition financing for a group including WD as long as WD remained a minority investor.

Update: Toshiba says it favors a bid from a group led by Bain Capital, but is still open to better offers.

Toshiba to focus on chip talks with Bain, but doesn't rule out other suitors

Start the Bidding War, Toshiba

Previously: Broadcom and Japanese Government Considering Bid for Toshiba's Semiconductor Unit
Samsung Could Boost NAND Production Capacity, WD Intervenes in Toshiba Memory Sale
Toshiba Sues Western Digital as it Seeks to Sell its Memory Business to a Third Party


Original Submission

IC Insights Predicts Additional 40% Increase in DRAM Prices 23 comments

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


Original Submission

Expect 20-30% Cheaper NAND in Late 2018 7 comments

The 512 Gb dies are coming:

64-layer 3D NAND is shipping, but the 256Gbit die will come and go rapidly. That's what makes this NAND cycle different. Many of the companies we've spoken to do not want to invest in products with such a limited shelf life. The 512Gbit die are right around the corner from the fabs. Some estimates put a major ramp up coming before mid year. The technology offers a 2x capacity increase while taking only a little more space on the wafer. The bits per wafer doesn't double, but it gets very close. The retail products coming in the second half of 2018 with have a heavy impact on SSD pricing. Some estimates from engineers we've spoken with put retail pricing on track for a 20% to 30% reduction over similar-capacity products shipping today.

Emerging technologies and form factors that reduce the material costs will also play a role. Toshiba Memory America showcased the new RC100 NVMe SSD that uses multi-chip packaging to cram the controller and flash in a single package.

Toshiba has described stacking 8-16 512 Gb dies with through silicon vias (TSVs) to create 512 GB and 1 TB packages. Samsung plans to stack 32 256 Gb dies to make 1 TB packages for an upcoming 128 TB SSD.

Previously: SK Hynix Plans 72-Layer 512 Gb NAND for Late 2017
SK Hynix Developing 96 and 128-Layer TLC 3D NAND
Intel First to Market With 64-Layer 3D NAND SSDs
Western Digital Announces 96-Layer 3D NAND, Including Both TLC and QLC
Toshiba's 3D QLC NAND Could Reach 1000 P/E Cycles
WD Announces 64-Layer 3D QLC NAND With 768 Gb Per Die, to be Shown at Flash Memory Summit


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 5, Touché) by EvilSS on Tuesday January 16 2018, @04:13PM (5 children)

    by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 16 2018, @04:13PM (#623164)
    It's almost like a new technology surges in growth for a while then levels off as it becomes commonplace. Wonder if anyone's ever noticed this trend before. They could probably write a new textbook for investors and journalists explaining it to them!
    • (Score: 4, Funny) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday January 16 2018, @04:47PM (2 children)

      by nobu_the_bard (6373) on Tuesday January 16 2018, @04:47PM (#623178)

      I for one, I am personally completely shocked that growth did not continue upwards perpetually, as was expected based on recent performance.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @06:06PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @06:06PM (#623200)

      True, but I at least wouldn't expect a drop yet. I am sure there are a lot of people like me who would have a lot more use for SSDs, but just aren't willing to pay the current prices.
      I.e. I don't think we are at the point where demand is leveling off but rather where demand is getting more tightly limited by cost (yes, demand is almost always relative to some cost, but I do think these scenarios can often be differentiated).

      • (Score: 2) by EvilSS on Wednesday January 17 2018, @03:54AM

        by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 17 2018, @03:54AM (#623420)
        I would expect a drop in prices if the fabs over-estimated demand and overshot it with production capacity increases. Plus the smartphone market has leveled out, I'm sure the consumer SSD market has leveled out, and the enterprise market is still growing but SSD storage is quickly becoming standard fare for a lot of replacement projects so while that area is probably still hot it's not as hot as it was back in Q1 2017.

        Hopefully this is good news for anyone in the market for DDR memory. If the NAND market is starting to level off maybe they can move some production back to RAM because right now RAM prices are too damn high!
  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 16 2018, @07:51PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 16 2018, @07:51PM (#623256) Journal

    Improve the product.

    New NAND memory chips. Now with Alzheimer's!

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 2) by bootsy on Thursday January 18 2018, @03:49PM

    by bootsy (3440) on Thursday January 18 2018, @03:49PM (#624173)

    Clearly as it is NAND then it should be "And Not" and not "Or Not" as that is NOR.....

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