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DRAM market to be balanced in 2H07, says IC Insights |
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Aug 13, 2007 at 05:59 PM |
 DRAM unit shipments are expected to jump nearly 50 percent in 2007, driven by strong demand across major markets resulting in a supply-demand balance at the exit of the year, according to IC Insights.
DRAM shipments are forecast to reach 3.0 billion units in 3Q07 and 3.3 billion in 4Q07. For the year, DRAM units are forecast to increase 49 percent. Shipments of 512Mb devices in 2007 are forecast to surpass total DRAM unit shipments for all of 2006. DRAM bit volume is forecast to surge 81 percent in 2007, the highest percentage increase since the 88 percent increase recorded in 1998.
PC shipments are forecast to increase 12 percent in 2007, with the average PC forecast to contain 1.4GB of DRAM, an increase of 75 percent over 2006, when memory per PC averaged 800MB. The average system memory per PC is expected to grow from 1.3GB in 2Q07, to 1.4GB in 3Q07 and 1.6GB in 4Q07.
The market research firm also cited strong demand for specialty DRAM used in handsets and game consoles will also help boost DRAM demand in 2H07. The Xbox 360 (512MB GDDR3 DRAM), PlayStation 3 (256MB XDR DRAM), and the Nintendo Wii (64MB GDDR3 DRAM) all require a significant amount of memory. IC Insights forecasts an average 28MB of DRAM per cellular phone handset in 2007.
DRAM demand/supply balance has also been assisted with a shift to NAND flash production by major Korean memory manufacturers, the market research firm said.
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