According to a survey by DRAMeXchange, the average price of the standard memory mainstream product DDR4 4GB was maintained at US$33 in March and was about US$34 in high prices. Overall, the price of standard memory in the first quarter was lower than that of last year. The fourth quarter rose about 5%. In the second quarter, affected by the nitrogen incident at Taiwan’s Micron (formerly Ruijing Plant), the DRAM market supply situation continued to be tight. It is estimated that the second quarter standard-type memory contract price will rise by about 3% again.
DRAMeXchange pointed out that since most of the standard memory is currently negotiated in a quarterly deal, most price increases in each quarter are concentrated in the first month. In January of this year, DRAM prices have roughly reflected the first. Quarterly increase in the rate, the current observation of the contract price in March did not see significant changes, about the same as last month.
In addition, Taiwan’s Micron reported that nitrogen supply was blocked on March 20 this year. According to DRAMeXchange analysis, this problem occurred outside Taiwan’s Micron Plant. The main reason was that due to the equipment failure of nitrogen, the gas could not be transported to Taiwan’s Micron, and the faulty machine had to send it. Returning to the United States for repairs, the machine platform has been repaired and shipped back to Taiwan. However, Taiwan’s Micron’s complete return to work will have to wait until early April.
Since the above-mentioned product applications of Taiwan's Micron are mainly standard memory, server memory, mobile memory (LPDDR4) and graphics memory. This nitrogen event will have a certain degree of impact on Taiwan’s Micron’s output this month and early April, and will continue the tight supply situation in the current DRAM market. It is expected that the standard-type memory contract price in the second quarter will rise again from the previous quarter. %. For the graphics memory market, which has already been in short supply, the impact will be even greater.