DRAM usage grows in smartphones: IHS iSuppli

BANGALORE, INDIA: According to anIHS iSuppli’s DRAM Dynamics Market Brief, “The average amount ofdynamic random access memory (DRAM) in each smartphone shippedworldwide is expected to surge by nearly 50 percent this year, asthese advanced cellphones gain greater functionality.”

As per the marketresearch firm, average DRAM content in smartphones will expand to 666megabytes (MB) this year, up from 453MB in 2011 and 202MB in 2010.The average density of DRAM chips in smartphones also is climbing andbecoming more uniform. The 4-gigabit (Gb) chip this year commandsroughly a 37 percent share of the DRAM market for smartphones,followed closely by the 8Gb chip configuration with 36 percent.

An evenhigher-density configuration, the 16Gb, is forecast to take the majorshare in the years ahead, indicating that DRAM density growth willcontinue uninterrupted for some time to come. While 16Gb DRAM willaccount for just 2 percent market share in 2012, its portion jumps to15 percent next year, overtakes 4Gb and 8Gb by 2013 and 2014,respectively, and then becomes the primary density configuration by2015, with 56 percent market share.

“As smartphonesbecome more sophisticated, memory usage in the devices continues torise, not only to satisfy user wants and needs but also toaccommodate demands made by ever-more powerful processors andincreasingly refined LCD screens. And as memory has increased insmartphones, the industry has moved from a complex world featuringdiffering memory densities, to a simpler space where phones lookincreasingly similar from a memory perspective,” said CliffordLeimbach, analyst for memory demand forecasting at IHS.

IHS alsoconfirmed a trend of increasing DRAM loading in the devices. None ofthe smartphone models being analyzed last year had more than 800MB ofDRAM. This year, however, all had at least 1,024MB or 1 gigabyte (GB)except for the Nokia Lumia 900 and the Apple iPhone 4S, both of whichfeatured 512MB of DRAM.

The rise of DRAMdensities as well as increased DRAM loading in smartphones is matchedby even more aggressive growth of another type of memory insmartphones i.e. NAND flash.