Posting the highest year-over-year growth in 14 years, the global semiconductor industry grew 21.7 percent in 2017, reaching $429.1 billion, according to IHS Markit. Another milestone was Samsung toppling Intel as the market leader for the first time in 25 years. Samsung reported 53.6 percent growth in 2017, thanks to rising prices and tight supply of…
Although NAND flash prices were flat to slightly up in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2017, suppliers grew their revenues by 6.8 percent on average in Q4, according to DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce. The smartphone market was the major demand contributor during the peak season, but the traditional off-season is impacting sales downward in the first…
Price increases for mobile, PC and server DRAMs are starting to moderate in the first quarter of 2018 as suppliers expand and reallocate production capacity. Following an average price hike of about 40 percent in 2017, DRAM prices are forecast to increase in single-digit percentages in the first and second quarters of 2018, according to…
Silicon wafer production capacity last year wasn’t enough to meet supply and demand across several IC segments, particularly memory components and discrete semiconductors, which resulted in component shortages and extended lead times. Wafer capacity is now forecast to increase over the next two years, which will lessen supply constraints and stabilize pricing as more capacity…
Global semiconductor spending reached a five-year high in 2017, up 17 percent from last year, according to the latest research from IHS Markit. Industry watchers agree the increase in OEM spending was significantly impacted by the supply shortage and higher prices of memory devices, particularly DRAM and NAND flash, together with strong demand from data…
DRAMeXchange, a research division of TrendForce, reports that Samsung Electronics, with the support of the Korean government, is signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) that should drive down DRAM price increases. The MOU is expected to consist of cooperation in the semiconductor industry, including further investment in China…
Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (Qualcomm Technologies), and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. have announced a multi-year strategic relationship agreement between the two companies in various technology areas and across a range of mobile devices. This deal expands the companies’ longstanding relationship as technology and business partners this year…
Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc. boosted their semiconductor spend in 2017, extending their lead as the top two semiconductor buyers in 2017, according to Gartner Inc.’s latest spending report. Together, the companies account for 19.5 percent of the total global market, spending $81.8 billion on semiconductors last year. This is up from more than $20…
Server DRAM prices continue to rise as supply remains tight in the first quarter of 2018, according to DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce. Server DRAMs have been in tight supply since the third quarter of 2017, driven by new internet data center projects in North America. DRAMeXchange estimates the prices of DDR4 32 GB RDIMM at…
CES may herald 2018 as the year that artificial intelligence (AI) takes off across all end market segments. Similar to what we’ve seen in the IoT space, these AI applications also overlap into other technology areas, including IoT, cloud, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), and big data. AI features already have made a big move…