Communications of the ACM
Memory-Chip Prices Fall From Pandemic Highs
Pricing for Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), which represents nearly 60% of global memory sales, began to fall on an annual basis in recent months.
Credit: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg News
Prices of memory chips, stuffed into nearly every electronic gadget, enjoyed a meteoric rise throughout the pandemic. Now prices have come down to levels that suggest the demand boom is likely over.
The average contract price for a major type of memory, called DRAM, fell by 10.6% during the April-to-June quarter versus the prior year, the first such decline in two years, according to TrendForce, a Taiwan-based market research firm. Prices are expected to decline even more dramatically in the months ahead.
Prices of DRAM, which enables devices to multitask, peaked last fall and began sliding on a quarter-to-quarter basis, though still remained higher than the prior-year periods until recently.
It is the latest indication of a slowdown in a semiconductor industry that reaped major financial gains in recent years. The pandemic created extra demand for PCs, gadgets and data servers that help power online activity. That helped fuel a historic supply shortage—and a further skyrocketing of prices.
From The Wall Street Journal
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