IHS iSuppli predicts the global DRAM market will grow by 3.3% Y-o-Y in 2012 with revenues reaching $30.5 billion, up from the -25% Y-o-Y decline the industry faced in 2011.

The outlook from the analyst remains positive for the 2012-2016 period, with revenues exceeding $30bn for each year until reaching $39bn by 2016.

Part of this newly found industry stability comes through the Micron acquisition of bankrupt Elpida-- a purchase causing a boost to Micron technology base, revenues and market share Continue reading...

Surprising developments happen in the Q1 2012 DRAM market-- a bankrupt Elpida Memory outperforms the overall industry, beating Micron to 3rd place.

Meanwhile the rest of the competition suffers due to falling average selling prices (ASPs).

IHS iSuppli reports the Q1 2012 DRAM market shows a -4.4% Q-o-Q decline, reaching $6.2 billion in value.

Will Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM) become the memory of choice for the future? Everspin Technologies certainly hopes so, announcing record 300% Y-o-Y growth in 2011 MRAM product shipments.

The Everspin customer list contains major OEMs such as Dell and LSI using MRAM in RAID storage solutions. The company says it has over 300 active customers, with around 100 MRAM products in 3 markets.

Everspin is currently the only commercial producer of MRAM products. IBM and Toshiba have been Continue reading...

IBM calls it "Racetrack Memory" even if it has nothing to do with neither cars nor horses-- but it might lead to future memory chips with the capacities of HDDs and the performance and durability of SSDs.

The company recently announced it has a working Racetrack Memory circuit at the IEEE International Electron Devices conference, with a chip consisting of 256 Racetrack "cells." Each cell consists of a nanowire 240nm wide and 20nm thick, with "spin currents" (electric currents, in other words) Continue reading...

IHS iSuppli reports global Q2 2011 DRAM prices continue freefalling further-- and will continue doing so throughout Q3 and Q4.

Suppliers will also face a "dramatic oversupply" in a "turbulent" H2 2011.

The average DDR3 DRAM (in 2GB density) price will drop from $2.10 (Q2 2011) to $1.60 (Q3 2011)-- a Q-o-Q decrease of -24%, the biggest in 2011. In Q3 2010, the average DRAM price was around $4.70.

iSuppli also predicts Q4 2011 prices will drop by -22% Q-o-Q, reaching the average price of $1.2 Continue reading...

In their paper for IEEE's International Memory Workshop, you can read the excitement between the lines at IBM about their prototype multilevel cell phase-change memory (MLC PCM) chip.

Phase-change memory (PCM) is not as fast as DRAM, but IBM says it's 100X faster at reading and writing data than flash memory. IBM doesn't expect PCM to replace DRAM, which can read and write data much more quickly. But PCM could boost DRAM performance by caching data for fast access when it's needed.

For the Continue reading...

DRAMeXchange issues its 2010 WW memory industry results, where revenue is up by 54% (reaching $9.3Bn) from 2009, thanks to strong demand and rising memory prices.

The analyst says the industry is recovering, thanks to DRAM prices' rebound in 2009 (following 2008's financial crisis).

Kingston is current leader in the WW memory industry, taking over 51% market share (up from 2009's 39%) and 95% Y-o-Y revenue growth. Following are A-DATA and Ramaxel, who basically nearly all remaining market share-- Continue reading...

DRAMeXchange says NAND flash contract prices will decline by 2-10% in Q2 2011 as consumer purchasing of flash-based products (such as memory cards) enters its off season in May.

This couples with current high inventory levels due to earlier speculative buying after March's Japan earthquake.

The analyst predicts this off season will continue in June while only a few major vendors will fuel demand for tablet and smartphone memory products through Q2 2011.

Memory makers might start adopting more Continue reading...