NAND Flash manufacturers have recently bumped up efforts to maximize profits by adjusting production capacity and have decreased supplies to channel distributors in order to fulfill demand from system OEM customers. This has led to increased contract prices for NAND Flash chips by roughly 2-5% in the second half of June.
On May 29, 2014, Seagate Technology (Seagate) announced it acquired LSI’s Accelerated Solution Division (ASD) and FCD (Flash Components Division) assets from Avago Technology (Avago) for US $450 million. Originally, FCD was responsible for LSI’s SSD controller R&D division, and formerly a SandForce research team.
The DRAM contract prices stayed relatively flat in 2H’June, according to DRAMeXchange, the memory and storage research division of TrendForce. The 4GB average contract prices remain unchanged at US $30.5, while individual chip prices are estimated at approximately US $3.5. The individual contract chip price is still roughly 18% lower than the market spot price for DDR3 4Gb 512Mx8 1600MHz, which is approximately US $4.255.
The 1H'June NAND Flash contract prices showed a slight 2-4% increase, according to DRAMeXchange, the memory and storage research division of TrendForce. Factors propelling the price growth include smartphone manufacturers’ increased restocking momentum as well as the reduced short term supplies resulting from the NAND Flash suppliers’ accelerated technological migrations. Looking at the third quarter, DRAMeXchange believes that the upward contract price momentum will continue as the rising demands for new Apple products, Chinese smartphones, and SSDs begin to limit the amount of NAND Flash supplies available to the channel clients.
PC DRAM supplies for the second half of the year have begun to tighten due to the major DRAM suppliers' continuous transition from PC DRAM to Mobile DRAM, the relatively low 25nm yield rates experienced by some of the DRAM manufacturers, and the delays with the 20nm process migrations, according to DRAMeXchange, the memory and storage research division of TrendForce.
