Memory markets poised for major changes as COVID-19 weighs on demand
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“Despite the COVID-19 outbreak, which negatively impacted the smartphone and automotive industries, but spurred demand for server and PC memory for stay-at-home activities, 2020 is expected to be a year of recovery,” asserts Simone Bertolazzi, PhD, Technology & Market analyst, Semiconductor, Memory & Computing, at Yole Développement (Yole). “At Yole, we see the beginning of a new era of prosperity for the memory industry.”
Driven by important megatrends such as mobility, cloud computing, AI and the IoT, the stand-alone memory market has experienced extraordinary growth over the past decade.
However, this exciting growth period ended in Q4-2018 when both the NAND and DRAM markets started experiencing oversupply caused by weak demand. This included lower-than-expected smartphone sales and a slowdown in datacenter demand. Inventory levels increased for memory suppliers and their OEM customers, with ASP ($/Gb) declining by more than 49% in 2019. Meanwhile, combined DRAM and NAND revenue reached ~$106B, down 34% from 2018. In 2019, significant DRAM and NAND capex cuts initiated a market recovery that began in late-2019, and which has continued in 2020.
In this context, Yole and its partner System Plus Consulting investigate disruptive memory technologies and related markets to point out the latest innovations and underline the business opportunities.
In this regard, both companies combine their technology and market expertise and propose deep added value collection of reports and monitors:
- A market and technology report, titled Status of the Memory Industry 2020 co-authored by the Yole’s Memory team.
This 2020 edition gives a comprehensive overview of the stand-alone memory market, including NAND, DRAM, NOR, 3D XPoint, (NV)SRAM, and more as well as detailed technical roadmaps, an overview of the memory activities all around the world, the competitive landscape and strategies of the leading memory companies.
Taking into account the COVID-19 outbreak, Yole’s analysts reveal a complete review of the industry and future trends.
- The structural, process & cost analyses from System Plus Consulting: 3D NAND Memory Comparison 2019 and YMTC 3D NAND Flash Memory.
“Featuring a comparison of YMTC’s 64-layer NAND with the other 64-layer NAND memories from main NAND manufacturers like Samsung, Kioxia and Micron, this study helps to compare the YMTC cell features and highlights the similarities and differences from other 64-layer NAND”, explains Belinda Dube, Semiconductor Memories and Integrated Circuits analyst at System Plus Consulting.
- Finally, quarterly market monitors released by Yole since 2018, NAND Quarterly Market Monitor and DRAM Quarterly Market Monitor. Yole’s memory monitors are published every beginning of March (Q1), June (Q2), September (Q3) and December (Q4). Aim of the Yole’s Memory team is to give a closer look at the main markets and players.
What are the economic and technological challenges? What are the key market drivers? Who are the suppliers to watch? What are the innovative technologies, they are working on?With a special focus on YMTC, what are the key technical choices for its 64-layer NAND? What is the added value of this solution?
What are the impacts of COVID-19
outbreak on the memory industry in both short and long terms?
Yole and System Plus Consulting present today their vision of the memory industry… More info.