My regular clients who get quarterly in-person market updates and those readers who have attended my annual Flash Market Update session at the Flash Memory Summit have often been told how Objective Analysis models the memory market based on supply/demand dynamics and the fact that memory chip prices tend to follow a very predictable pattern. In this post The Memory Guy blog will explain that Continue reading “Where Are We in the Memory Cycle?”
Category: Memory Markets
Semiconductor Collapse Runs Slightly Behind Schedule
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) recently released its January semiconductor market revenue figures. January revenues were down 5.2% month-on-month, and 18.5% from January 2022. Things are pretty bad.
The Memory Guy decided to compare the current situation to the forecast that I was sharing with my clients last October, five months ago. At that time my company predicted that 2022 revenues would Continue reading “Semiconductor Collapse Runs Slightly Behind Schedule”
Memory Market Down, but a Turnaround is Coming
[Post updated 14 Feb. with Kioxia data, a margin chart, and to correct an error.]
The quarterly results of most memory companies have been reported, and revenues, gigabyte shipments, and prices are all down. Most of the profits have been taken out of the business.
This is not an unusual situation for Continue reading “Memory Market Down, but a Turnaround is Coming”
Objective Analysis Forecast Update
Although The Memory Guy blog doesn’t often discuss the total semiconductor market, Objective Analysis does a particularly good job of forecasting not only memories, but also the semiconductor market as a whole.
That said, a video explaining our 2023 semiconductor forecast has recently Continue reading “Objective Analysis Forecast Update”
Today’s “Unprecedented” Collapses
Starting with Micron’s most recent earnings call The Memory Guy has been hearing memory executives and others use the word “Unprecedented” to describe today’s market collapse. Perhaps the strangest of these was an article in the Storage Newsletter that said that the current situation was “Unprecedented since 2008.” Given that “Unprecedented” means that nothing like this has ever happened before, that’s a pretty strange thing to say.
Being a numbers guy, I decided to see just how Continue reading “Today’s “Unprecedented” Collapses”
How Do US Chips Get Into Russian Missiles?
An August 8 investigative report by Reuters revealed that many of the missiles that Russia has been raining down on Ukraine include US chip technology. The Memory Guy thought that it might be good not to simply react, but to provide some deeply considered insight into how that could have happened, and what it might mean.
The Story
Russian missiles that failed to explode in Ukraine have been examined and found Continue reading “How Do US Chips Get Into Russian Missiles?”
Micron Investor Day: Big Plans for Tomorrow
During Micron’s May 12 Investor Day Conference the company presented a number of new memory technologies and one compelling new business strategy that The Memory Guy thought were worth sharing. The audience learned of yet-another planar DRAM process node, Micron’s layer count for its next-generation NAND, how a portion of its proprietary SSD controller has been absorbed into the NAND chips, and finally Continue reading “Micron Investor Day: Big Plans for Tomorrow”
How the Chip Shortage Impacts Memories
There’s been a lot of talk in the press for over a year about the chip shortage, but this isn’t something that I have written about in The Memory Guy. My coverage of the shortage has been limited to the investor posts that I write for Smartkarma, and they’re behind a paywall. It’s about time for me to post something here.
The shortage is the reason that the world semiconductor market is constantly breaking revenue records. Since December 2020 every month has set Continue reading “How the Chip Shortage Impacts Memories”
Tectonic Change Coming to Chip Production
Every so often a new idea comes into an established industry from an unexpected direction and creates a dramatic change to the way that the industry operates. In today’s post The Memory Guy will explain a radical new chip production process will rapidly change the nature and cost structure of the entire semiconductor industry, DRAM and NAND flash first, slashing costs and waste while phenomenally increasing output.
This revolutionary approach stems from Continue reading “Tectonic Change Coming to Chip Production”
More New “Brief” White Papers Published This Week
As we have every week since January, this week Objective Analysis published another handful of our white papers, which we call “Objective Analysis Briefs”.
This week’s set covers a very diverse range, from the dissolution of a joint venture, through semiconductor cycles and business strategy, to Continue reading “More New “Brief” White Papers Published This Week”