SAN FRANCISCO—Spot prices for DRAM chips are on the rebound thanks to production cuts by several vendors, and the spot price for 1-Gbit DDR 2 667-Mhz parts may reach $1 again in the first quarter of 2009, according to DRAMeXchange, a Taiwanese DRAM clearing house.
Spot prices for 1-Gbit DDR 2 667-Mhz parts dropped below $1 in October and went as low as 60 cents, roughly the vendors' material cost for producing them, DRAMeXchange said.
But Taiwanese vendors cut almost 30 percent of their output in 12-inch equivalent in the fourth quarter, and Hynix Semiconductor and other Korean vendors (other than Samsung Electronic Co. Ltd.) cut output by about 16 percent, DRAMeXchange said. The decreased output is expected to last through the fourth quarter, the firm said.
DRAMeXchange expects that the contract DRAM price may bottom out in the first quarter of 2009, but upside momentum will be "comparatively weak." Upside momentum is stronger in the spot DRAM market, the firm said.
Taiwanese DRAM vendors, the major suppliers to the spot DRAM market, were the first to decrease their output, DRAMeXchange said.
On Monday (Dec. 22), market research firm Gartner Inc. reported that spot prices for DRAM and NAND parts showed some increases for the week ending Dec. 19 on news of production cutbacks.
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