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The latest mobile DRAM market analysis by DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, finds that smartphone makers continue to upgrade memory specifications of their devices as to get the optimal performances from the latest mobile operating systems. At the same time, more products within the mainstream application processor lines are supporting the latest-generation memory solutions. The developments, together with advances in DRAM manufacturing processes, have accelerated the pace of market adoption for LPDDR4 and its variant LPDDR4X.
The sharp upswing in prices of mobile DRAM products is expected to hold back the growth of average per device memory content for smartphones this year, says the market intelligence firm TrendForce. Furthermore, TrendForce has lowered the estimated average memory content of smartphones for 2017, from 3.7GB to 3.2GB. The revised average memory content figure represents an increase of 33.4% compared with the 2016 figure.
The introduction of the deep Learning (DL) approach to machine learning has led to incredible developments in artificial intelligence (AI) over the past few years, attracting interests from cloud computing and semiconductor chip businesses. According to TrendForce’s latest research on AI, the three forces that drive advances in machine learning are software, hardware and data. AI systems based on DL requires vast amounts of data to train their abilities such as identifying objects and processing requests. Therefore quantity and quality of data directly affects AI systems’ accuracy. As cloud and software platform companies compete to bring AI solutions for different applications, ownership and access to data will become crucial to their strategies.
DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, reports that the average spot price of PC DRAM DDR4 chips has fallen by about 1.92% since April 20. Latest analysis indicates that PC DRAM's chip prices generally have been higher in the spot market than in the contract market.. The recent drop in the average spot price of PC DRAM DDR4 chips is thus a correction to limit the price gap between the two markets. Nonetheless, DRAMeXchange maintains the view that DRAM prices will generally stay on an uptrend during the entire 2017. This is mainly attributed to tight supply resulting from the lack of major fab expansion plans and yield issues with leading-edge processes.
DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, anticipates that 3D-NAND will formally become the mainstream architecture of NAND Flash memory in the third quarter of 2017 with its share in the total NAND Flash bit output exceeding 50%. Following the footsteps of the leading 3D-NAND producers Samsung and Micron, most NAND Flash suppliers will begin mass production of 64-layer 3D-NAND chips in the second half of 2017. Nonetheless, the overall NAND Flash supply is expected to remain tight through the year due to Apple stocking up components for the next iPhone release and steady demand growth from SSD vendors.
