DRAMeXchange Compuforum 2010 to be held during Computex

TAIWAN: The DRAMeXchange Compuforum 2010 will take place on 1 June, 2010 (the first day of Computex Taipei) in Taipei International Convention Center.

DRAMeXchange will gather industry leaders from around the world to share their knowledge in the production, market trend and technical aspects of the memory and storage industry.

According to Joyce Yang, Vice President of DRAMeXchange Research Division of TrendForce Corp. will share her viewpoint on the ‘DRAM and NAND Flash Market View for 2010-2012’.

After loss was recorded in three consecutive years, DRAM vendors cut the capacity drastically in 4Q08. With the 8” fab phase out, total DRAM capacity had reduced 20% and DRAM vendors finally returned to the positive profit in 2009 with rebounding price. DRAM vendors initiated the 4nm migration in 2010.

However, 2010 DRAM supply growth still lies in uncertainty due to the difficulty in technology migration and immersion scanner shortage. Triggered by the recovering global economy and PC replacement effect, PC-OEMS shows the aggressive shipment perspective. NAND Flash rebounded from the bottom of 2009. Given the dynamics of iPad launch from Apple, the strong smartphone growth momentum, 3xnm/2xnm migration and rising TLC portion.
　
Dr. Antonio Mesquida Küsters, Director of Market Intelligence of ASML, will discuss on the issue ‘Advanced Lithography as key enabler of memory industry recovery’. Dr. Antonio Mesquida will present on the latest product roadmap and show why lithography-shrink is an economic and efficient way to increase bit-output next to the addition of new fab capacity or to the increase of bits/cell (in the case of NAND).

ASML calculates that a significant capacity ramp-up will be needed in the coming two years to properly address the expected demand, as a result of the next PC-upgrade cycle and the fast proliferation of smart phones, on top of a potential fast ramp-up of SSDs in notebook computers.

Dr. Alex Wang, President of Powerchip Semiconductor Corp., perceives that the DRAM outlook is bright since experiencing disastrous ten consecutive quarters of loss, the DRAM industry is back on track and returning to its glory days. Dr. Wang will focus his presentation on looking into the future and reviewing the past of the DRAM industry.

Joe Chen, General Manager of Zentel Electronics Corp., will enlighten Compuforum attendees with his speech on ‘Consumer DRAM’. DRAM is very widely used in various applications including not only computers but also digital consumer and communication devices.

Ranging from 16Mb through 1Gb, the DRAM for consumer applications typically have lower density but higher bandwidth than those for computers. SDR (Single data rate) and DDR (double data rate) are the most popular architectures, with DDR-2 emerging very quickly for the high performance video applications.

Doreet Oren, Marketing Director of SanDisk will be sharing her viewpoints on the ‘SSD Adoption and the Evolving Client PC’. Ms. Oren will focus on how the SSD’s multiple benefits enable a growing variety of Client PC devices. SSD manufactures must carefully tailor the specific needs for each usage model to best support the end user. SSDs need to meet different specs of performance, power consumption, and reliability and an assortment of form factors to address diverse needs.

Program Manager of Anobit, Yoav Kasorla will discuss on how Error Correction Code (ECC) is typically used to correct errors and retain reliability in NAND-based products and systems. A new technology termed Memory Signal Processing (MSP™) will be presented, which integrates advanced ECC with proprietary signal processing algorithms that compensate for NAND’s physical limitations.

Jet Huang, COO of JMicron Technology Corp., will reveal his viewpoints on how the next ten years will be an era of Cloud Computing. Everything will be computed in the Cloud. Therefore, Cloud needs more powerful servers and more quickly accessible storages. The characteristics of SSD and NAND Flash is high access rate and thin volume, which fits the need of Cloud Computing.

eTT (Effectively Tested) DRAM is being adopted in large volume by DRAM module manufacturers and computer system integraters for the benefits of price and availability. However there are concerns on eTT parts for shortcomings in quality and reliability due to its shortened or omitted test screening conditions.

Ukyo Jeng, Senior Director of A-DATA will examine on the difference in test conditions between eTT parts and fully finished parts, and demonstrates ways to achieve equivalent quality level of finished DRAM module using eTT parts.