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Watch for potential DRAM shortages in second half, says iSuppli
El Segundo, Calif. — DRAM supplies may be falling short of demand due to limited manufacturing equipment availability and challenges in process migrations, according to the market research firm iSuppli Corp.
“A commodity profoundly susceptible to the variable dynamics of supply and demand, DRAM is expected to ship 15.9 million 1Gbit-equivalent units in 2010, up 48.6 percent from 10.7 million units last year,” said Mike Howard, senior analyst for DRAM at iSuppli, in a statement.
“Most of the year’s growth is forecasted to occur in the second half of the year, with each of the final two quarters of 2010 expected to post sequential bit growth of approximately 11 percent. In comparison, bit growth in the first two quarters of 2010 topped out at far below the 10 percent mark. Such high levels of growth, concentrated in a six-month period, will strain the production capabilities of DRAM suppliers,” added Howard.
The report, “Second-Half DRAM Supply Possibly at Risk,” finds that the two biggest issues impacting DRAM supply are bottlenecks in the supply chain for tooling equipment, and challenges relating to immersion yield, said iSuppli.
iSuppli says overall production remains a problem because ASML Holding N.V., the world’s largest supplier of semiconductor lithography tools, can’t supply enough equipment.
However, a more serious challenge that could impact DRAM supply, says iSuppli, relates to yield challenges beyond 50 nanometer (nm), the point at which immersion tooling becomes necessary.
The industry’s biggest players — including Korean giant Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Hynix Semiconductor Inc. from Taiwan, and U.S.-based Micron Technology Inc. — have successfully made the shift to smaller lithographies thanks to their resources and experience producing NAND flash memory, which is ahead of DRAM lithographically, said iSuppli.
However, for resource-constrained companies or for those currently making the transition, challenges associated with the shift to smaller lithographies might reduce their total output, negatively impacting the industry’s overall bit growth in the process, said the market research firm.
As an example, if Elpida, which was expected to move from 6xnm processes to 45nm, along with technology partner Rexchip Electronics Corp., run into yield issues, bit production could be significantly disrupted for both companies, potentially resulting in two to four percentage points lower growth than expected for 2010, said iSuppli. This would translate into a projected annualized growth rate of 45 percent, down from 49 percent.
In turn, the lower bit growth could result in higher pricing. As a result, the big winners would be Samsung and Micron, which have already successfully shifted to smaller lithographies, said iSuppli.
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