DRAM Market Might Be Getting Better

Just when we finish talking about how not well the NAND Flash storage market is doing, we end up stumbling upon a report saying that DRAM market could finally be getting back on its feet.

Not long ago, we reported on Samsung's alleged plans to stop shipping microSD cards to certain vendors, in an attempt to control their prices.

Like that of all other NAND-based products, microSD memory cards have been dropping in price a bit more than manufacturers are comfortable with.

In other words, the NAND Flash memory segment is in a bit of a bind, not unlike the ones that drove the DRAM industry into the dumps it is lying in now.

However, if what Digitimes says is true, the DRAM market might be getting its act back together soon. It will be a long recovery process, but the worst should have passed by now.

The one to whom this projection is attributed is Charles Kao, the president of Inotera Memories.

He said that the global DRAM market would probably be dominated by fewer suppliers, and that fits with recent occurrences, however ironic.

In general, dynamic random access memory chips and, by extension, DRAM modules and kits, have been dropping in price almost constantly over the past two years.

Oversupply was what basically did the previous prices in. Price cuts were the only course of action memory makers could take really.

In retrospect, it is not so different from what would have happened to the HDD market if that flood hadn't swept across Thailand last year.

For those who've forgotten, Thailand is the country where Western Digital has its primary manufacturing plant. It is also the region where HDD component makers have their operations. Long story short, the HDD ecosystem was disrupted severely by water ingress, leading to the so-called crisis.

That's neither here nor there though. To sum up, back when the DRAM makers stopped cutting prices, causing a short rebound, they actually managed to give the whole segment a nudge in the right direction. Well, right from their point of view anyway.