Finding hot trends in memory chip industry

NEW YORK, USA: Memory chip makers with a strong presence in the NAND flash market have been the strongest performers in the industry as of late. Meanwhile weak PC demand has hurt earnings this year for companies more focused on dynamic random access memory (DRAM).

For those needing a quick overview, DRAMs read the data widely used in traditional PCs, while NAND flashes can store data even when switched off, and are used in high-end portable devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs.

The Bedford Report examines the outlook for companies in the Semiconductor-Memory Chip Industry and provides research reports on Micron Technology and Netlist.

NAND is considered more rugged and faster than hard drive technology, which manufacturers view as an advantage for tablets, which need fast boot times and can easily be dropped.

According to a report from IT industry research firm iSuppli, high-speed NAND flash chips will reach sales totalling 1.7 billion gigabytes this year, tripling last year's 428 million gigabyte shipments. The report goes on to forecast up to 8 billion gigabytes by 2014.

DRAM demand, on the other hand, is plummeting due to its correlation with PC sales. Contract prices for mainstream DRAM chips have posted enlarged drops in the last month.

Micron Tech offers both DRAM and NAND products. In the third quarter Micron Tech reported a 14 percent sequential drop in revenues from its DRAM products. The average selling price (ASP) for Micron's DRAM products dropped 2 percent sequentially, while the company's NAND flash ASPs were up by around 3 percent.