//php echo do_shortcode(‘[responsivevoice_button voice=”US English Male” buttontext=”Listen to Post”]’) ?>
The reminiscence market is so risky that within the early 2000s, a number of companies together with Enron sought to kind a DRAM-futures buying and selling market. Samsung, the biggest maker of reminiscence chips on the earth, this week warned that the chip trade could also be in for exhausting touchdown by the top of the 12 months.
The market has modified drastically for the reason that first half of the 12 months, Kye Hyun Kyung, head of Samsung’s system options division, stated yesterday throughout a uncommon briefing on the South Korean firm’s new chip fab in Pyeongtaek, in response to a report by Bloomberg Information.
The overall notion earlier this 12 months was that the second half of 2022 could be higher than the primary.
A Samsung consultant contacted by EE Occasions immediately declined to remark concerning the forecast. The particular person did, nonetheless, level to a press launch confirming that the corporate had held a media occasion yesterday to announce it had begun NAND Flash manufacturing on its third manufacturing line in Pyeongtaek.
Two of Samsung’s main opponents, Micron Expertise and SK Hynix, have additionally signaled waning demand. CNBC reported the information out of SK Hynix. The South Korean chipmaker sees H2 server reminiscence chip demand slowing.
Whereas the reminiscence market is thought for its sudden and wild value swings, nearly each electronics product made accommodates a number of of those chips. Scaled-back reminiscence demand has implications for different semiconductor merchandise and the interconnect, passive, and electromechanical (IP&E) parts that populate printed circuit boards.
Samsung’s chip operations account for roughly $21.8 billion of its $240 billion income in 2021. The Pyeongtaek facility is the biggest chip-making operation ever constructed to this point, the corporate stated in ready remarks.
“The Pyeongtaek campus is quick rising as Samsung’s key manufacturing hub for cutting-edge semiconductors starting from the world’s smallest 14-nanometer (nm) DRAM and modern V-NAND to sub-5nm logic options,” Kyung stated in ready remarks. “Our focus extends past manufacturing to embody all features of sustainability, from cultivating a extra environmentally pleasant office to pursuing shared development with ecosystem companions and surrounding communities.”
Semiconductor producers have introduced plans to construct about 29 fabs throughout the globe to higher reply to quickly altering market demand.
Samsung, which has traditionally invested closely in superior chip manufacturing, intends to maintain capital expenditures regular, Bloomberg reported.
However flagging gross sales aren’t the one headwind for Samsung. The U.S. authorities has demanded that any semiconductor firm benefiting from federal grants—a part of the lately handed CHIPS Act—chorus from manufacturing chips in China for 10 years. Samsung plans to construct a $17 billion chip plant in Taylor, Texas, with building slated to start out later this 12 months.
The U.S. authorities has additionally restricted gross sales of synthetic intelligence chips and cutting-edge chip gear to China to hinder the nation’s technological development. Samsung, like many electronics corporations, sells chips, smartphones, and different merchandise into the large Chinese language market.
The South Korean authorities is in search of to barter the restrictions with U.S. officers.
Market-watcher TrendForce final week revised its 3Q22 NAND Flash wafer contract costs downward—once more. Costs have been anticipated to say no 15-20% whereas chipmakers reduce costs to stimulate demand. That estimate is now 30-35%.
“Trying ahead to the worth of NAND Flash wafers in 4Q22, as producers have already carried out a method of sustaining market share in any respect prices, contract and spot market wafer pricing are dealing with collapse,” the agency stated.
—Alan Patterson contributed to this report.
