Market and Technology Trends

Status of the Memory Industry 2022

By Yole Intelligence — May 2022

Despite global challenges, the market will grow over $260B in 2027. Memory demand will remain stubbornly resilient and new solutions will enable relentless technology scaling.

What’s new

Analysis of the challenges and prospects for the transition from planar to monolithic 3D DRAM
Overview of technologies and players involved in persistent memory, processing-in-memory (PIM) and computational storage
Discussion on the opportunities of wafer-to-wafer bonding for next-generation NAND, DRAM, and HBM technologies
2021 financial analysis of IDM memory companies – including Samsung, SK hynix, Kioxia, Western Digital, Micron, and Intel
Update on the NOR Flash memory business: key players, growth drivers, applications, market share, revenue, and more
Update on the Chinese memory business: technology roadmaps, investments, and recent activities, including the financial restructuring of Tsinghua Unigroup

The future looks bright for the memory business: the NAND and DRAM markets are poised to hit new revenue records

Amid trade-war tensions and the Covid-19 pandemic, the stand-alone memory market has been expanding throughout last two years. Revenue was up 15% and 32% in 2020 and 2021, respectively. Such remarkable growth was made possible by a combination of constrained production and strong demand growth across most market segments. The pandemic boosted notebook and server demand, while temporarily diminishing smartphone and automotive demand.
In the coming quarters there will still be global challenges. These include lockdowns, semiconductor shortages and geopolitical tensions. There have also been chemical contamination issues at Kioxia and Western Digital’s fabs, which will continue to have an impact on the memory business. However, bit demand is expected to remain stubbornly resilient. The outlook for the memory business therefore appears bright. Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) is expected to grow to $118B, up 25%. NAND flash memory will reach $83B, up 24%, in 2022. These are historical records. In the long term the stand-alone memory market will keep expanding, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate from 2021-2027 (CAGR21-27) of 8% and is poised to grow over $260B in 2027. However, cyclicality will remain.
Noticeably, the NOR flash market has seen a strong resurgence in 2021. Revenue grew to $3.5B, up 43%. This is due to tight market conditions putting upward pressure on price. Significant demand growth was driven by multiple applications, including consumer and the Internet of Things (IoT), automotive, telecom and infrastructure.

New technical solutions – such as hybrid bonding, EUV lithography and 3D DRAM – will enable continuous density scaling and performance growth

The year 2022 marks the 35th anniversary of NAND flash’s invention, a technology that has tremendously changed the way humankind stores and uses digital information. Since 1987, the bit density and cost-per-bit of NAND devices have progressed at a relentless pace. To sustain such remarkable scaling, new technical solutions are being heavily investigated, including Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS)-bonded array (CBA) architectures, such as the Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC) XtackingTM approach. Nowadays, all memory manufacturers are carrying out R&D using hybrid bonding equipment. Major suppliers like Kioxia and Samsung are pulling in wafer-to-wafer bonding on their NAND roadmaps.
In the DRAM business, there is currently consensus that planar scaling – even through extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) processes – will not be sufficient to provide the required bit-density improvement for the entire next decade. Hence, monolithic 3D DRAM – the DRAM equivalent of 3D NAND – is being considered by major equipment suppliers and by leading DRAM manufactures as a potential solution for long-term scaling. We believe that this novel 3D technology could make its entry into the market in the 2029-2030 time range. Before that, we expect that hybrid bonding systems could start penetrating the DRAM equipment market for manufacturing of 3D-stacked DRAM, such as high bandwidth memory (HBM), likely starting from the HBM3+ generation

The production ramp-up of China-made memory is opening new business opportunities for OSAT players

Chinese memory efforts have narrowed down to the two most promising players, namely YMTC for NAND and ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) for DRAM, which are supported by a flourishing semiconductor ecosystem. YMTC is currently shipping 32-layer (32L) and 64L NAND in low volumes domestically, including SSDs, with early 128L production underway and targeting – among others – low-end smartphone applications. We believe that YMTC has the potential to reach more than a 10% share of NAND wafer production by 2027. CXMT could halve its competitive gap with the incumbents over the next five years. This would be a considerable accomplishment but would still leave CXMT technology trailing the industry leaders by three to four years.
YMTC and CXMT do not have internal experience in assembly and packaging and must use Outsources Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) companies, creating a major business opportunity, which could be worth more than $1.1B in the next five years.

Key features

Summary of the stand-alone memory market and related technologies, including NAND, DRAM, NOR Flash, (NV)SRAM, emerging NVM, and more
Description of technical trends and manufacturing challenges, scaling roadmaps and players’ dynamics with a special focus on China
Overview of solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory modules with their key protocols and interfaces such as DDR5, HBM2E and CXL
Breakdown of the memory market from a system point of view, detailing present and future memory needs for servers, smartphones, personal computers, SSDs, and vehicles
Mapping of the stand-alone memory supply chain, analysis of M&A and joint ventures, and list of noteworthy news
Overview of embedded memory technology and progress towards in-memory computing applications

Product objectives

Present an overview of the stand-alone memory market:Present an overview of the stand-alone memory market:
- NAND, DRAM, NOR Flash, 3D XPoint, (NV)SRAM, and more
- Competitive landscape, activities, and strategies of key market players
Provide an understanding of stand-alone memory technologies and applications:
- Roadmaps with technology nodes, product development status, chip density, scaling challenges, and potential solutions
- Memory content evolution in key systems: servers, smartphones, personal computers, vehicles, enterprise, and client SSDs
- Main memory end-markets: datacenter, mobile, automotive, PC, and consumer electronics
Offer market forecasts for the stand-alone memory business:
- Market forecast for 2021-2027 for NOR, (NV)SRAM, and other technologies including emerging NVM
- Market forecast for 2021-2027 for NAND and DRAM, with details on capex by players, price per bit, market share, bit demand, bit shipments, wafer production, and more
Detail and analyze the competitive landscape:
- Financial analysis: key memory companies’ revenue, capex, R&D, operating costs, and margins
- Supply chain mapping from materials/equipment manufacturers to storage drive and memory module makers
Present an overview of the stand-alone memory market:Present an overview of the stand-alone memory market:
- NAND, DRAM, NOR Flash, 3D XPoint, (NV)SRAM, and more
- Competitive landscape, activities, and strategies of key market players

Do you have an account?

Search