DDR3 IC contract prices to rise
Price increases could be short-lived as more capacity comes on
Jim Carbone -- Purchasing, 7/1/2009 1:52:35 PM
Memory IC buyers can expect the July contract price for double data rate 3 to rise 5-10% in July as more computers will be equipped with the next-generation DRAM technology.
DDR3 is apparently having an affect on DDR2 prices, at least on the spot market. DDR3 1Gb chips on the spot market are priced $1.50-$1.70, says DRAMeXchange. Because of the transition to DDR3, the price is falling for DDR2 1Gb chips The average price in June fell to $1.00 from $1.34 in May, says the researcher.
DRAM buyers can expect more DDR3 production for the rest of the year as the number of DDR3 wafers increases from about 120,000 in the first quarter to 300,000 in the fourth, according to DRAMeXchange. At the same time, DDR2 production will decline from about 800,000 wafers in the first quarter to about 705,000.
Samsung, the largest memory IC supplier, says it is expecting strong growth for DDR3 DRAM in the second half of the year and in 2010.
Notebook computer manufacturers have been early adopters of DDR3, says Sylvie Kadivar, associate director, strategic DRAM marketing for Samsung of Samsung Semiconductor, based in San Jose, Calif.
"There are significant benefits when you use DDR3. There's greater bandwidth, speed and power reduction. "You can go up to 60% power saving using DDR at two times the bandwidth of a DDR solution," says Kadivar. Such power savings are important to notebooks because they are battery powered. But it is also important to servers, which are used in data centers. With data centers there is a push to great energy efficiency and lower power consumption.
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