DDR2 1Gb price may surge up to 1.2 - 1.5 USD after Qimonda declared bankruptcy, says DRAMeXchange

Taipei, January 23, 2009---German DRAM vendor Qimonda declared Bankruptcy, DDR2 1Gb chip price may surge up to 1.2 USD to 1.5 USD, according to DRAMeXchange.

Two years of DRAM price dropping, even fell below the material cost of DRAM vendors in Q408, have driven the German, Korean, and Taiwanese governments to work on bail-out plans for the DRAM companies in order to protect future development of the industry. Last December, Qimonda got the package of 325 million euro (422 million USD) loans from the government of Saxony, its parent company Infineon, and a Portuguese state bank and once saw the light of survival. According to the source today, since Infineon hasn’t provided capital and the German government decided not to support financial aid. Qimonda declared bankruptcy.

After terminating technical cooperation with Taiwanese DRAM vendor Nanya in mid October 2008, as stated in their contract, their joint venture fab Inotera were going to keep supplying to Qimonda until August 2009. But after Qimonda stop paying the loans to Inotera, Inotera had cut capacity to respond. Inotera’s new technology partner Micron will also increase its DRAM supply volume form Inotera.

Excluding the Inotera portion, the Qimoda’s 12 inch capacity, including German and U.S., is about 60 to 70 K wafers. If the Winbond OEM portion was added, it adds up to 80 to 90 K wafers. The Q109 WW 12 inch capacity average wafer in is now 920 K wafers (the peak average was 1.25 million wafers per month in Q308), which implies that there is high possibility we will see 10% production decrease of WW DRAM supply as long as other DRAM vendors keep their original capacity cut range. The DDR2 1Gb DRAM may have chance to go up to 1.2 to 1.5 USD price level, which is the cash cost of DRAM vendors, under the circumstances of DRAM capacity keeps reducing.

About DRAMeXchange

DRAMeXchange is a global leading provider of market intelligence, in-depth analysis reports and consultant services on major electronics components. Our company consists of 3 major research divisions---DRAMeXchange, WitsView and LEDinside, which cover the DRAM, NAND Flash, PC and display research sectors.

In the year 2000, the company started to deliver market intelligence services under the name of DRAMeXchange technology. This included the current business environment, real-time spot trading prices, market trends, capital spending and wafer capacity trends, the impact of DRAM/flash memory products on the market, and other relevant PC industry information. You can learn more about DRAMeXchange by visiting www.dramexchange.com.