Toshiba Latest Casualty of DRAM Price Wars

Tsar writes: "ITWorld.com tells the story: Toshiba is getting out of the DRAM business. They had 6.2% of the world market last year, but soon their Manassas, VA facilities will belong to Micron, the Yokkaichi plant's DRAM production will be reduced to a trickle, and Toshiba will be out of the commodity memory market. Guess you can sell DRAM for a hundred bucks a gigabyte, but you can't make a living at it yet."

Comments

DRAM Schme-RAM

[CaptainAlbert]

DRAM is a funny product. Market analysis is harder because the demand for it is not governed by your "ordinary" factors. For a start, it doesn't wear out half as fast as you might expect (particularly if you compare its failure rate to the average lifetime of a home PC). Demand in recent years has been similar to that for mobile handsets - the technology matures and people want it... until they *have* it, then they don't need any more.

If you imagine that every household didn't have an electric jug kettle, and someone suddenly invented it and sold it at an affordable price... well you get the idea.

DRAM is in over-supply because it's one of the only silicon products which has a huge domestic market. My company makes telecoms base-station hardware, and we have next to no DRAM on our boards - it's all SRAM and fast DPRAM embedded in ASICs. The demand for *those* is easier to analyse because the market is steadier and less "faddy".

Shame they couldn't put the plants they're closing to better use though... it's not like there aren't more exciting designs around the corner waiting to be spun...

Here's A Better Way For Them To Make A Living

[istartedi]

Guess you can sell DRAM for a hundred bucks a gigabyte, but you can't make a living at it yet."

Give the DRAM away for free, and sell support for it.