DRAM price trend in the second half

The decline in DRAM prices also helps to drive down PC prices, which is an important news for consumers planning to purchase new PCs. Earlier in 2010, a shortage of DRAM led chip makers to increase production to ease the problem of insufficient supply.

However, research firm Gartner believes that the average price of DRAM (ASP) will continue to decline slowly in the second half of 2010, but at the same time, DRAM makers will cut production costs to maintain healthy gross margins.

Gartner pointed out that in early 2010, DRAM prices were high, even reaching 15% of the mid-tier PC costs. The increase in cost has prompted PC makers to strengthen their attitude in dealing with DRAM companies.

20% of DRAM's annual output is sold in the spot market, while the remaining chips are sold to PC companies with contractual relationships.

According to Gartner data, the current contract price of the mainstream DRAM chip 1Gb1, 066MHz DDR3 has dropped to 2.4 US dollars, while the spot market chip prices fell 0.4% to 2.71 US dollars in April to May, the chip price is about 3 US dollars.

InSpectrumTechnol, which is responsible for on-line DRAM transactions, expects DRAM prices will fall even lower in the future.

The company said that due to South Korea's DRAM leader Samsung Electronics (Samsung Electronics) actively increase production capacity, chip prices will be severely cut in the second half of 2010, especially in the third quarter.

In May 2010, Samsung doubled its spending on its new DRAM production line to 11 trillion won (about 9.7 billion U.S. dollars), which was originally only 5.5 trillion won. The company said it wanted to keep up with the trend of DRAM prices, but analysts believe that the increase in production also has the effect of cracking down on rivals.

In addition, with the increase in PC demand in 2010, in addition to DRAM prices, other PC components have also increased prices, including liquid crystal (LCD) screens, printed circuit boards, power management chips and thermal management components and so on.