DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, reports that prices have stabilized for the first time in a year for mainstream client-grade SSDs in the PC-OEM market during this third quarter. Compared with the prior quarter, the average contract price of MLC-based SSDs rose 0~0.5% while that of the TLC-based SSDs fell slightly by 0~1%.
This year’s Flash Memory Summit was held from August 9 to 11 in Santa Clara, California. “For the second consecutive year, this major Flash memory industry conference held a special forum for discussing the Chinese market, with CEO of Sage Microelectronics Dr. Jianjun Luo as the host,” noted Sean Yang, research director of DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce. “This shows that Chinese Flash memory industry is gaining greater voice and visibility within the industry.”
The latest research from DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, finds that the global mobile DRAM revenue grew 17.2% sequentially in the second quarter, benefitting all top three DRAM suppliers. Expanding Chinese branded smartphone shipments, driven by Huawei, OPPO and Vivo, as well as bit supply growth in the mobile DRAM market, attributed to this revenue increase.
Market oversupply continued to put downward pressure on DRAM prices in the second quarter, according to DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce. Compared with the prior quarter, the global average sales price (ASP) of DRAM for all applications fell by more than 5%. On the other hand, the global DRAM revenue for the second quarter rose 6.3% sequentially to US$9.1 billion due to the expansion of bit supply. Increased output from Micron’s 20nm and SK Hynix’s 21nm processes were the drivers of this bit supply growth.
With the government’s backing, key enterprises in China’s semiconductor sector have just established a “high-end chip alliance” that fosters the formation of a vertically integrated industry ecosystem on a national scale. The founding 27 members of this alliance include Tsinghua Unigroup, Yangtze River Storage Technology, SMIC, Huawei, ZTE and China Academy of Telecommunication Research (a branch of the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, or MIIT). “This alliance of government, academia and industry aims to create a complete ecosystem for domestic semiconductor manufacturers, said Jian-Hong Lin, research manager of TrendForce. “If successful, the alliance will create a chip industry chain starting from chip architecture to chip production, operation systems, devices, platforms and finally to the IT service market. In sum, this move is another indication of China’s ambition to transform itself from a major manufacturing country by export volume to a global manufacturing leader in terms of product quality.
