Posted 11/18/09 at 08:00:13 AM by Paul Lilly

There's not much time left to get on Santa's 'Nice' list, and if your'e hoping to score some RAM this holiday shopping season, that's a place you'll want to be. Why? Because memory makers are forecasting a DRAM price drop in December.

In addition to the usual seasonal demand, DRAM vendors say it's likely chip makers who have already turned a profit will decide to flex their cost competitiveness muscle and slash prices to drive up shipments.

The latest rumblings run counter to previously reports which suggested that major DRAM producers would try to push chip prices upward, but that no longer appears likely. The opposite has already begun, with the average spot price for branded 1Gb DDR2 chips trending down 0.76 percent to close at $2.60 on Tuesday, according to data from DRAMeXchange.

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Posted 11/17/09 at 11:36:20 AM by Paul Lilly

Talk about déjà vu. it's been a rough year-plus for DRAM manufacturers, who have had to contend with an oversupply of chips, falling prices, and a global recession on top of it all. At least one vendor said the DRAM market was the worst he'd seen it in 15 years. So it's a little bit curious that after finally showing signs of a rebound, memory makers appear stoked about an expected reduction in production costs in 2010.

It would make sense, provided the savings aren't passed on to the consumer, but that's usually not the way it works. Nevertheless, as memory makers compete with each other in a race to shrink dies, production costs are set to go down pretty significantly, DigiTimes reports.

Samsung has already adopted a 56nm process for over half of its DRAM output and has been churning out DDR3 chips using 40nm technology in small volume since the fourth quarter. By the second half of 2010, Samsung is expected to be heavily focused on 40nm.

Eplida and Nanya are also flirting with shrunken dies. And according to a recent iSuppli report, the worldwide DRAM industry has the manufacturing capacity to last through 2012.

It all sounds positive, until you consider the current condition of the memory market. But hey, from a consumer side, this is gravy. Bring on the faster, less expensive DDR3 modules.

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Posted 11/16/09 at 08:00:32 AM by Paul Lilly

Further proof that DDR2 is on its way out, several memory backend suppliers have been preparing for a major DDR3 push, news and rumor site DigiTimes reports.

Memory packaging and testing firms Powertech Technology, Formosa Advanced Technologies Company, and Walton Advanced Engineering all say that DRR3 will account for 90 percent of their DRAM shipments by the end of next year, up from 40 to 50 percent at the end of 2009. Walton estimates that some 90 percent of its overall DRAM revenue will come from DDR3 in 2010.

The writing has been on the wall for some time now. DDR2 pricing began rising months ago until DDR2 contract prices finally jumped ahead of DDR3 at the beginning of October.

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Posted 11/12/09 at 11:15:38 AM by Paul Lilly

We did some digging, and from what we can tell, G.Skill's correct in claiming that it's new DDR3 kit is the fastest around, so long as we put the CAS Latency (CL) setting front and center.

The new kit, which is part of G.Skill's Pi series and "specially tuned for Intel Lynnfield Core i7 870, 860 processors," comes rated at DDR3-2200 with 7-10-10-10 timings at 1.65V. It's available in 4GB (2x2GB) form, but is it really the overall fastest?

That's a tough one to answer. A quick peek on Newegg shows one other DDR3-2200 memory kit, this one from Super Talent. It comes rated at 8-8-8-24, so we're willing to give G.Skill's kit the slight edge, at least on paper.

G.Skill says its new modules will be available through collaborated distribution partners "immediately with affordable price."  As of this writing we weren't able to track down a kit online.

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Posted 11/04/09 at 03:47:17 PM by Pulkit Chandna

The DRAM market slumped to a 15-year nadir last year. But it is now moving briskly on the road to recovery. According to DRAMeXchange, contract prices for 1Gb DDR2 and 1Gb DDR3 chips shot up by 15.7% and 10.9%, respectively, in the late part of October. Nanya Technology's vice president and spokesperson Pai Pei-Lin expects an encore from the DRAM market in November. He believes November will bring yet another double-digit rise in contract quotes for DRAM memory.

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Posted 11/03/09 at 09:00:54 AM by Paul Lilly

Want to get in Mother Nature's good graces and maybe save a buck or two while doing so? Combine Samsung's memory chips with Microsoft's operating system. That's the message in a nutshell the two companies will work together to promote.

"There is not doubt that the combination of Windows 7 and 40nm DDR3 in new PCs will make users very happy," said Dong-Soo Jun, executive senior vice president of memory marketing at Samsung Electronics. "If you opt for 4GB of memory in a Windows 7-based system, over typical 2GB-based systems used today, you'll see an increase in performance, while using less power thanks to the efficiency of Samsung's 40nm DDR3 DRAM."

If this all sounds a little bit hokey, you may just have to get used to it. Depending on how this marketing campaign plays out, Samsung suggested it might further collaborate with Microsoft on more green IT efforts on a global scale.

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Posted 10/22/09 at 09:08:38 AM by Paul Lilly

Perhaps the DRAM market is on the road to recovery after all. Business has picked up as of late, and according to Pai Pei-Lin, VP and spokesperson of Nanya Technology, contract prices for DRAM chips will continue to climb next month.

In a sort of domino effect, Pai said he expects Windows 7 to set in motion a long overdue upgrade cycle that has been stalled the past three years because of disinterest in Vista. This will mean even higher demand for DRAM chips, potentially reaching the DRAM market's peak it in 1995, and ultimately a shortage of chips in 2010 as memory makers reach their limits in capacity output.

According to Pai, DDR2 and DDR3 will likely split the market evenly in the first quarter of 2010, but their could be a pricing disparity. Contract prices for DDR2 chips have been rising since August and finally surpassed DDR3 this month, and that trend looks to continue for at least the next couple of months, Pai noted.

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Posted 10/09/09 at 12:00:56 PM by Paul Lilly

In a change of pace, DDR2 pricing has finally surpassed DDR3, at least on the contract side. According to DRAMeXchange, contract quotes for 2GB DDR2 modules jumped up to an average of $31.50 in the first half of October, a little above DDR3's $31 quote. In addition, 1Gb (gigabit, not gigabyte) DDR2 chips have settled at $1.78, slightly above DDR3 at $1.75.

In the spot market, DRAMeXchange notes that prices for 1Gb DDR2 surged by 5 percent in a single day on October 8, and average quotes for 1Gb DDR2 800MHz chips managed to top the $2 mark at $2.24.

What this all means going forward is anyone's guess in the unpredictable memory market. But it at least appears that DDR3 will become a better bang/buck investment on the consumer side than DDR2. Elpida has already announced plans to increase output of DDR3 chips from 20,000-30,000 up to around 75,000 wafers per month, and Samsung also said it would ramp up production.

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