14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that whatever issues have been plaguing the DRAM market, much in the same way as those on the NAND market, are not going away any time soon, being set to reach their so-called climax in a few months.
The past few months have been rich in news and updates concerning the less than stellar situation on the DRAM market, as well as that on the NAND Flash memory chip side of the field.
While this segment did seem to perform well enough, at least up until the end of the first half of the ongoing year, things are not so stellar anymore and haven't been for months.
As some end-users may know, the makers of DRAM chips, or most of them, have moved on to newer manufacturing processes.
This led to rapid rise of DRAM chip and module inventories, inventories that were not matched by demand.
As such, suppliers of memory products saw themselves in need of being especially careful when placing orders.
This, in turn, led to progressive cuts in DRAM prices, and it appears that said price cuts will keep on going, until the first quarter of 2011, or so DRMeXchange reportedly states.
Back in the first half of 2010, 2 GB DDR3 modules sold for as much as $46.50, only to end up progressively falling to below $30.
DRAM suppliers are now mindful of their capex allocation for the first half of next year, as these price drops are set to continue until they hit a so-called bottom in Q1, 2011.
Another consequence is that PC OEMs will start to put more memory in their products, since more for lower prices always looks better in the eyes of consumers.
All in all, the average DRAM content for notebooks and desktops should end up as 2 GB and 4.22 GB as far as 2011 is concerned.