Monthly Memory & Flash Market Watch

Samsung warned that it expected a recovery in chips to begin only in the second half of the year, while smartphone demand would likely contract in 2023.

KIOXIA and Western Digital jointly produce flash memory chips in Japan.WD is rumored to be in advanced talks for a possible merger with Japan's KIOXIA Holdings, a combined WD and KIOXIA would control a third of the NAND flash market, putting it on par with South Korea's Samsung Electronics.WD has announced a review of strategic alternatives which could result in the separation of its disk drives and memory chips businesses.

SK Hynix Inc. announced that its DDR5 for servers which adopts 1anm technology using the EUV lithography process, has been validated on the 4th Gen Xeon Scalable processor for a first time.The 4th gen Xeon Scalable processor, as Intel Corp.’s latest server CPU, has been cited as a key to a turnaround in the industry, for it brings server replacement and rapid increase in demand for high-performance memory chips. Experts predict that DDR5 will soon become the flagship product in the server DRAM market.

Micron has already made a marginal cut to its PC DRAM production, hence the overall PC DRAM bit output is expected to fall during 1Q23. However, suppliers’ DRAM inventories have been climbing to new heights. It is projected that the ASP of consumer DRAM products will fall by 18~23% Q/Q for 1Q23 as supply glut persists in this segment.

SUPPLY TREND

WW SSD Shipment

W.W. SSD Shipment: Worldwide SSD shipment is expected to grow gradually.

WW DRAM Output

Global output is more conservative because of weak demand.

NAND Flash 512Gb TLC Contract Price and Sufficiency, 2022 - 2023

NAND Sufficiency: NAND Flash expected to maintain oversupply globally until the end of Q2.
Price Trend: NAND Flash price trend is expected to be flat in Q1 and dip slightly lower in Q2 and Q3.

DDR4 8Gb 1G*8 3200MHz ASP and Sufficiency , 2022-2023

DRAM Sufficiency: Global demand is weak, so oversupply is expected to last until 2023/Q3.
Price Trend: Contract price is expected to trend lower in Q1 but it’s expected to approach the spot low in Q2-Q3/2023.

SUPPLY SIGNAL

	Type	Supply	Price
DRAM Module	DDR3	●	▼
	DDR4	●	▼
	DDR5	●	▼
Flash Storage	SLC	●	▂
	MLC	●	▂
	3D TLC (BiCS3)	●	▂
	3D TLC (BiCS4)	●	▂
	3D TLC (BiCS5)	●	▂

● Smooth supply ● Tight supply ▂ Flat ▲ Upward trend ▼ Downward trend

WORK WITH ADATA

The memory module market is currently experiencing a downtrend in pricing, however, the decline is expected to be less significant than in recent months. With a lead time of approximately 4 weeks, it's important to plan your orders accordingly to ensure a smooth production process.

On the other hand, the price correction in the industrial flash market is not as pronounced. Despite this, the demand for industrial flash remains strong and its prices have remained stable at this time.

We encourage you to take advantage of these market conditions and plan ahead for your upcoming production needs. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.