SRAM tags stabilize

By Staff -- Purchasing, 10/19/2000

Sram tags should stay flat or increase only slightly through the rest of the year, as demand seems to be catching up with supply.

Demand for sram has been growing from the computer, networking equipment and cell phone industries. That demand will continue for several more years, and the sram market will grow from about $4.6 billion in 1999 to about $7.7 billion by 2004, according to market researcher IC Insights.

Demand for fast sram, those with access times of less than 30 nanoseconds, is driven by demand from PC manufacturers, who use it in cache, and by networking and telecommunications manufacturers. Local area and wide area networks and ATM switches use fast sram because of their need to move data quickly, says Brian Matas, an analyst with IC Insights.

In unit shipments, fast sram represents 32% of all shipments, while slow-speed devices account for the rest. Sixty-four percent of fast sram is 2-Mb density and higher. Micron, Motorola and sony are the major high-speed sram suppliers.

With slow-speed devices, 1-Mb devices are the most widely used. Accounting for 39% of units shipped, 2 Mb and higher devices represent about 24% of the sram market in units. Most slow-speed sram is shipped to cell-phone manufacturers.

Some sram manufacturers, such as Mitsubishi and Hyundai, are working with cellular-phone handset manufacturers to supply sram, flash and other ICs in a multichip module or a chip-scale package, says Matas.

Prices rose this year due to increased demand and limited supply because some sram suppliers converted their capacity to other products. In fact, tags increased in the first half of the year, but have been volatile on the spot market since midyear.

Frank Cavallero, vice president of sales and marketing for necx.com, says 512K x 8 slow speed sram in an SOP package cost abut $11.20 in June, dropped to about $9.50 in August, but has increased to $10.50 in September.

The 128K x 8 in a SOP package was about $5.80 in June, dropped to $4.80 in August, and now is about $4.50, indicating supply has caught up with demand. However, demand will stay strong for sram, says Cavallero.

"[sram has] found new homes in telephony connectivity and wireless applications. There are more places sram is being used," he says. There are more applications.