Page 17 - Memory Chips News Today

NXP Semiconductors and TSMC have jointly announced their collaboration to deliver the industrys first automotive embedded MRAM in 16 nm FinFET technology.

Micron Technology has released two SSDs: the Micron 6500 ION NVMe SSD and the Micron XTR NVMe SSD. These drives, designed to keep up with the accelerating growth of data, provide a major advancement for data centers by cutting operating costs and enhancing storage efficiency.

The top two semiconductor suppliers in South Korea, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, both reported big net losses in 1Q23. Facing a sluggish memory market, they are counting on the next generation memory, DDR5 DRAM, for sales recovery.

Samsung Electronics has developed what the company claims is the industrys first 128-gigabyte (GB) DRAM to support Compute Express Link (CXL) 2.0. Intel and Samsung collaborated closely on this revolutionary advancement on an Intel Xeon platform, according to the Korean chipmaker.

DDR3 memory prices are still under downward pressure despite suppliers output constraints, according to industry sources.

As the slow demand for NAND persists, Kioxia and Western Digital are reportedly accelerating their merger talks, which may create the second-largest flash memory chip producer after Samsung Electronics.

The worlds top three DRAM suppliers are cutting production. It is expected that Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron will reduce wafer supply by up to 25% YoY in 2023. This would help set the DRAM market back to normal supply-demand dynamics, and start to ease oversupply, starting from 2024. DRAM suppliers would also recover some power in price negotiation.

Memory products will remain a buyers market in the short term as inventory levels at suppliers are still at historical highs, and prices are caught in a tug-of-war between both suppliers and customers in the second quarter of the year.

According to TrendForce, DRAM and NAND Flash prices are expected to fall further in the second quarter of 2023 due to weak server shipments and high inventory levels.

The core of todays high-profile contest between the United States and China is Washingtons aim of trying to curb Beijings steady growth in chip-related areas. Especially in artificial intelligence, quantum technology, nanotechnology, quantum computing and data science.