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The global DRAM revenue reached a new record high in the first quarter of 2017, reports DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce. Taking account of the severe supply shortage towards then end of 2016, most PC-OEMs started to negotiate first-quarter contracts in advance during last December. Their demand for sustained DRAM supply had resulted in an at least 30% increase in the average contract price of PC DRAM modules between the fourth quarter of 2016 and the first quarter of 2017. The effect of the price surge in the PC DRAM market spilled over onto the server and mobile DRAM markets. The prices of mobile DRAM products also grew by nearly 10% on average this first quarter compared with the preceding quarter.
Intel continues to dominate the market for mainstream server processors during this year’s first half with its global market share currently at above 90%, reports DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce. Though AMD and Qualcomm transitioned to the more cutting-edge manufacturing technologies such as the 14nm and the 10nm processes for their server solutions towards the end of last year, they will not be able to expand their market shares significantly in the short term. Intel’s competitors are still behind in developing third-party hardware and software support.
Nearly all companies listed on TrendForce’s revenue ranking of the global top 10 fabless IC design houses for the first quarter posted year-on-year growth. Novatek was the sole exception and saw a slight dip in its revenue compared with the same period a year ago. For IC companies, the growing sources of end-market demand for this year come from networking equipment, data centers, servers and automotive electronics.
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.
