Inadequate sales of DRAM led to overcapacity of DRAM

Taiwan’s media reported that Samsung’s president of the chip business, Wu Yi, recently stated at a media conference in Taipei that due to the dismal PC sales, the DRAM market will see a situation of oversupply at the end of the third quarter.

According to Quanzhou, since all major suppliers have increased DRAM production capacity based on advanced technology, global DRAM production capacity will inevitably grow in the third quarter. If PC sales continue to slump, DRAM overcapacity will continue into the first quarter of next year.

In contrast, Samsung is more optimistic about the NAND flash memory market. They believe that NAND flash memory prices have slowed down and will stabilize in the second half of this year. Quan Wuyi believes that NAND flash memory is not as closely connected to PC products as DRAM. It is more dependent on smart phones, tablet computers and other mobile products to drive sales and grow in emerging applications.

Samsung will begin mass production of 35nm DRAM chips later this year, and will implement 20nm-level NAND chip production next year.

In addition, Samsung’s investment in memory and logic chips will reach US$10 billion this year, and the planned expansion of memory chips will follow the original schedule. Samsung is currently building Line 16 production lines for DRAM, NAND and next-generation memory products, and is expected to start production next year, producing 200,000 wafers per month for 12-inch wafers. Its Line 15 production line will also expand production, mainly focusing on DRAM chip production.