14 DAY TRIAL // Although DDR3 will continue to be rather scarce until next year, suppliers are already busy putting together forecasts, and marketing strategies based on them, concerning total DRAM shipments and the corresponding revenues. Despite the fact that DDR3 has only just been introduced and still isn't widely available for marketing, companies such as Powertech technologies (PTI), Formosa Advanced Technologies Company (FATC) and Walton Advanced Engineering have high hopes for it.
According to Walton Advanced Engineering, reports seem to suggest that it will see its capex increasing from this year's NT$2 billion to NT$3 billion in 2010. To achieve this, the company plans to add ten more high-speed testers of its own, for a total of 17 by the end of next year. DDR3 is expected to make up 90% of the enterprise's overall DRAM revenues by the close of 2010, compared with this year's 20-30%.
According to DigiTimes, FATC company sources suggest that the overall expectations are for the DDR3 shipment to represent over 90% of the total DRAM shipment for 2010, up from 40-50% at the end of 2009.
According to market watchers, FATC, as the backend memory supplier for Nanya Technology, started installing new high-speed testers for DDR3 memory chips in September. In tune with this, FATC stated that the larger part of its focus for 2010 would keep going into purchasing more of these high-speed testers and capacity expansions for memory packaging and LED chips. Out of these, the company expects its 2010 capex to be double that of this year, namely NT$2 billion.
It seems the new type of random Access Memory has become quite popular, despite its overall scarcity so far. Although it is incompatible with its predecessor, DDR2, it is capable of double data rates, as well as allowing chip capacities of up to 8 Gb. With data being transferred 64 bits at a time per memory module, if the memory clock frequency equals 100 MHz, DDR3 SDRAM gives a maximum transfer rate of 6400 MB/s.