Powerchip, Taiwan’s biggest D-Ram company, said on Monday it was exiting the commodity PC D-Ram market in favour of making more specialised chips used in mobile computing devices such as tablets and smartphones.
Frank Huang, chairman, said his company would wind down its business of selling PC D-Ram chips under the Powerchip brand. Instead, Powership would become a contract manufacturer of PC D-Ram chips for long-time partner Elpida of Japan, the world’s third biggest D-Ram company. Read more
By Jane Rickards in Taipei
Samsung Electronics foresees an oversupply of dynamic random access memory (D-Ram) chips in the fourth quarter of this year or the first quarter of next year if the PC market continues to slow, marking the latest twist in a tortuous saga of gluts and shortages. Read more
How quickly the cycle turns. Barely a year ago D-Ram chipmakers couldn’t move fast enough to cut capacity as they struggled with oversupply during the industry’s most severe downturn. On Wednesday, the head of investor relations at Micron, the US memory chip company, confirmed what many analysts had been predicting: There is a shortage of Nand flash memory and D-Ram in the market.
This good news is tempered by the consideration that, over the history of the D-Ram industry’s existence, any shareholder gains made during the upturn have inevitably been destroyed in the next downturn. Many D-Ram makers, when presented with that fact, had last year vowed to be more disciplined should they make it out of the downturn, but can the tiger really change its stripes? Read more
This is probably as good as it gets for D-ram industry consolidation in Taiwan. ProMOS, which stood on the brink of bankruptcy for much of the past year, was assured of new business on Friday when it signed an agreement to provide manufacturing services to Japan’s Elpida. Elpida will also licence the technology needed to produce future generations of D-ram chips to ProMOS. Read more
Is there finally light at the end of the tunnel for embattled D-Ram memory chipmakers? Research consultancy iSuppli seems to think so, and this week changed its near-term outlook rating for D-Ram suppliers to “positive” for the first time since last September.
In fact, D-Ram’s troubles had begun long before last September, with the market “stuck in a state of oversupply for nearly three years,” according to iSuppli chief analyst Nam Hyung Kim. Read more
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Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
