TAIPEI, TAIWAN: Deemed as one of the most successful international events at the 2008 Taipei Computex show, DRAMeXchange recently held its annual conference at the Nangang Exhibition Hall. Conference participants, ranging from leading memory storage to professionals to numerous related industry experts, came from more than 20 countries.

Three key analysts from the Industry Research Division of DRAMeXchange discussed the opportunities and challenges of the DRAM and NAND Flash sectors as well as the current market current trend of China’s memory module market.

Joyce Yang, Vice President of Industry Research Division, indicated that amid the diminishing presence of the 8-inch fabs, slower expansion of the 12-inch fabs and DRAM makers’ reducing capital spending by 37 percent (YoY), the overall industry growth rate is expected to reach around 55 percent, which, compared to last year’s 93 percent, has substantially declined by 40 percent.

As for the development in the chip process technology, the mainstream production process of DDR2 will shift from 70nm 8F2 to 65nm 6F2, and 5Xnm by the end of this year. Such trend stems from the need to further lower production costs in gaining a favorable edge in the intense market competition.
 
On the other hand, Jeff Chen, Senior Analyst of Industry Research noted that when it comes to getting into the China DRAM module market, distribution is the most important determining factor, along with working with strong, resourceful local distributors.

China’s market is desirable in the eyes of many major module makers, because the ratio of China’s desktop PC sales accounts for more than that of the rest of the world combined, and the need for spot DRAM is still relatively high. For module makers, the strength of distribution channels and the production costs are two important factors that need to be considered for a successful DRAM business in China. Currently, the distribution of China’s DRAM is primarily operated by in the Chaozhou and Shenzhen regions.

Wayne Chen, Director of Industry Research Division, pointed out that as the infrastructure of global wireless broadband network (3.5-4G and WiMax) develops, more growth opportunities for portable electronics will appear. With the global launch of HDTV, the need for higher storage capacity will subsequently increase. This increase the NAND Flash usage in electronic storage devices and create more business opportunities for storage applications.