Monthly Memory & Flash Market Watch

Samsung opens 3D DRAM research centre in Silicon Valley

• Samsung’s new US R&D lab revealed it has been preparing new 3D structures for sub-10-nanometer DRAM, enabling larger single-chip capacities that can exceed 100 gigabits.

Western Digital’s 2FQ24 end market revenue distribution: cloud 35% / client 37% / consumer 28%

• Cloud: Q/Q growth was attributed to higher nearline shipments to data center customers and better nearline pricing. Y/Y decrease was due to lower eSSD bit shipments.

• Client: Q/Q 2%↓,an increase in flash ASPs was more than offset by a decline in flash bit shipments.Y/Y increase was due to higher flash shipments, primarily driven by client SSD shipments for PC applications.

• Consumer: Q/Q growth was primarily due to seasonal strength in flash bit shipments. On a Y/Y basis, the increase in flash bit shipments was partially offset by a decline in flash ASPs as well as lower HDD shipments.

Kioxia to kill off its 30-year-old SSD brand Plextor and replace it with trademark SSSTC--Solid State Storage Technology.

SSSTC will focus solely on drives for enterprise, datacenter, and industrial applications.

SK hynix recorded an operating profit of 346 billion won in 4FQ23 amid a recovery of the memory chip market

•This marks the first quarter of profit following 4 straight quarters of losses.

• The firm took advantage of its market-leading technology in the DRAM space to actively respond to customer demand, which led to sales of its primary DDR5 and HBM3 products increasing by more than 4x and 5x QoQ compared with 2022, respectively.

Micron to invest in Indian semiconductor talent pipeline

• The MOU between Micron and India’s NAMTECH educational initiative is supported by the Indian government to create a self- sufficient semiconductor assembly and test ecosystem in the country.

• The company is a keen investor in India's semiconductor ecosystem. It is currently building an assembly and test facility in Sanand, Gujarat, which will create approximately 5,000 direct Micron jobs and 15,000 community jobs.

• Micron promised to invest another 4.3 billion yuan (US$ 606.2 million) in its chip-making plants in China.

SUPPLY TREND

2023-2024 Worldwide SSD Shipment

after peak shipment in 4Q23, WW SSD demand is expected to grow stably throughout 2024.

2023-2024 Worldwide DRAM Output

DRAM production for all applications is expected to be at a high level in Q124 and then reach to a new height in 2H24 compared to the entirety of 2023.

2023-2024 NAND Price Trend & Sufficiency Ratio

NAND Sufficiency: maintained at extreme low level from 2H23 to 2024

Price Trend: NAND Flash price is likely to climb continuously in 1H24, after a sharp rise in 4Q23

2023-2024 DDR4 Price Trend & Sufficiency Ratio

DRAM Sufficiency: maintained at extreme low level during 1Q-2Q24
Price Trend: 8Gb contract price demonstrated obvious growth in Jan.’24., and will remain higher than the spot low level in 2024

SUPPLY SIGNAL

	Type	Supply	Price
DRAM Module	DDR3	●	▲
	DDR4	●	▲
	DDR5	●	▲
Flash Storage	SLC	●	▂
	MLC	●	▲
	3D TLC (BiCS3) *Limited Supply. We encourage you to migrate to BiCS4 and BiCS5	●	▲
	3D TLC (BiCS4)	●	▲
	3D TLC (BiCS5)	●	▲