DRAM contract – 2H March

DRAMexchange reporting flattish contract pricing in both DRAM and NAND for the second half of March.  I believe Micron’s DRAM contract pricing dropped ~5% for the same period – Micron’s has held better but has specialized DRAM in there that isn’t as market sensitive as regular DRAM.  It may suggest a shortfall, or at least a price renegotiation, at Sun Micro (LAVA) whom I believe is the biggest chunk of specialized DRAM.  NAND pricing was flat despite excessive reported strength in the Apple iPhone ramp.

Qimonda may receive a capital injection from Saxony.  There are still too many poor DRAM companies and they’re going to resurrect this one.  DRAM is still precariously poised for a difficult recovery – over-capacity is still there, just idle.  Netbooks use 1/4 the memory of standard notebooks.  Windows 7 allegedly requires less memory.  There seem to be little to no drivers to increase DRAM per box so they’re stuck in a commoditized hell.  Units are unlikely to offset the typical price declines as all the unit growth is in their least penetrated market – netbooks.