14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that the prices of DRAM chips genuinely are still dropping, as late November actually saw contract quotes falling by yet another strong percentage, at least as far as DDR3 is concerned.
As those interested in such things no doubt are aware, DRAM and NAND chips have been going through a period of more or less serious price decline.
Said period has extended over several months already and the weakening prices have been driven, for the most part, by process transition.
Among the companies that are behind this phenomenon are those that are suffering from oversupply after moving on to more advanced process technologies or just producing more than they could sell.
For those seeking any sort of specifics, Inotera Memories, Nanya Technology and Samsung Electronics are just three of the many affected by this turn of events.
In other words, quite a few DRAM makers moved to better manufacturing processes, and this led to too high a supply of chips overall.
Now it seems that the semiconductor industry is faced with this oversupply and demand doesn't look like it will catch up any time soon.
The last time any update was offered in this matter was a forecast that prices would keep falling until the first quarter of 2011.
Sure enough, November is coming to a close and a new report found that contract prices for DRAM have indeed fallen by quite a bit.
2 GB DDR3 modules, for instance, saw their average price drop to US$22, or so Digitimes reports, based on what sources in Taiwan claim.
This happened because contract prices of DDR3 fell by 12-13%, to the point where 1 Gb DDR3 chips now sell for US$1.16-1.28.
Moving forward, contract prices for DRAM are expected to fall under US$20 by the end of the year if DDR3 modules themselves actually manage to descend below that mark.