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  • trajik78 - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link

    Does this mean DDR4 prices will come down sooner than later? I'm sitting on my hands to upgrade because it's crazy expensive at the moment.
  • HStewart - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link

    It probably means that for that one can purchase larger amount of memory for cheaper cost.

    It also depends on how they make the DDR memory, if use less chips, it could mean 4G will drop - but not sure if the rate of return will allow 2G
  • ddrіver - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link

    It means they will have bigger profit margins. You'd be an idiot to think these guys care about more that their own wallets.
  • HStewart - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link

    All I say if you can my DDR stick with less of these chips - the cost of board would come down - but yes it probably means Samsung would make more profit from it. Only thing that helps if there is another physical manufacture to allow completion.
  • svan1971 - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link

    ddriver - what charity do you work for? do you get paid or do you work for free? R&D, manufacturing,resources,adveetising,shipping all cost money paying employees cost money to.
  • III-V - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link

    He apparently works for Retards Anonymous. He's by far the most ignorant commenter on AT articles.
  • jjj - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link

    The execs are in general bound by law to only care about profits, it's their duty to protect the interests of the shareholders and nothing else. That's how our world works and the BS about jobs is something you hear from execs that see the public as stupid and from corrupted politicians.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_primacy
  • jjj - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link

    Not at all, DRAM prices might come down in 2019 but unlikely to drop significantly in 2018.

    Prices are not determined by cost, they are a factor of supply vs demand. If Samsung gets to 80% margins on the DRAM side, they'll be happy to take it.
    Micron reported results yesterday and they had 62% margins for DRAM ( they got higher costs than Samsung) and 62% margins are Intel like so stupid high.
    In 2019, enough capacity comes online for prices to drop quite a bit but remains to be seen how hard, wouldn't expect anything close to summer 2016 prices.
  • Beaver M. - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link

    Make that supply, demand and competition.
    If there is no competition, prices will rise, no matter how high the supply is. And right now the memory market looks like the HDD market. There is not much competition because they have been swallowed by the bigger companies. Its also very likely they are fixing the prices, just like in the HDD sector.
  • jjj - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link

    Just to add something. Ofc the most advanced node will focus on areas where it can add more value (and make more money) so high end phones or server where folks pay a premium for lower power and higher density.
  • III-V - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link

    Eventually they will. Possible slight decrease next year, definitely coming crashing down in 2019. There's a lot of production expansion in the works, and once we see those facilities ramp up, we'll finally get the price war we need.
  • limitedaccess - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link

    I don't understand the why some people are quick to dismiss this when these exact same players have been caught before.

    15 years ago when there were much more memory manufacturers in the market Samsung, Hynix, and Micron were all guilty of anti-trust violations acting as a part of a cartel.

    Now Samsung, Hynix and Micron have 95% of memory market share.

    Conveniently all 3 under estimated memory demand just slightly. in that there capacity is just nearly enough to fulfill demand but just slightly behind the demand curve.

    Conveniently neither 3 have been approving extensive capex expenditure.

    Conveniently none of the 3 is attempting take market share from each other.

    Conveniently all 3 will have significant capacity expansion coming online and capex ramp in 2019. Why? There are expectations that Chinese capacity will start to come online, the Chinese are currently outsiders.

    Incumbents will also start to enact measures, including IP litigation, to prevent Chinese companies from entering the market. Don't be surprised if these measures succeed that capex expenditure all of sudden to start dropping.
  • t.s - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link

    Spot on!
  • mitsuhashi - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link

    Hey limitedaccess -- are you the same dumbass from SlickDeals?

    Samsung upped their planned $13.5B investment to $26.1B for their semiconductor fab in Korea.
    https://www.anandtech.com/show/11603/samsungs-mult...

    Another $7B for their NAND fab in China.
    https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=133220...

    The latter article will also states:
    "The company has been investing aggressively as industry-wide capital spending is expected to soar by 20 percent in 2017, largely driven by Samsung, according to market watcher IC Insights. The key driver behind strong growth this year has been the memory chip segment.

    Samsung’s full-year 2017 capital expenditures could range from $15 billion to $22 billion. If Samsung spends $22 billion this year, total semiconductor industry capex could reach $85.4 billion, representing a 27 percent increase over the $67.3 billion the industry spent in 2016, IC Insights said."

    So in your head, $33B in fab investments by a single company = not competing, and "a 27 percent increase over the $67.3 billion the industry spent in 2016" on capital expenditures = a 0% increase? Yeah, keep your head in the sand, buddy.
  • Beaver M. - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link

    Sad to see that so many people dont have a clue how price fixing works.
    I guess thats why it still happens all the time...
  • limitedaccess - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link

    You realize the explanation is even in the articles you are referring to? Read the eetimes article in context, notice how it even spells out that Samsung's ramp is timed with the ramp of China's own industry.They cannot count on China not aggressively pursing market share. The eetimes article even brings up corruption issues with Samsung at the end of the article.

    At the end the current DRAM players were already guilty of collusion when the market was much more diversified. Now 3 players, all of which were involved before, currently occupy 95% market share. You think the past fines are deterrents? $1 billion spread over the entire industry? Micron just reported a year to year increase of over $2.5 billion over one quarter.
  • Round - Thursday, January 4, 2018 - link

    Mitsubishi,

    As a long time reader/lurker, your post finally got me to join and comment.

    Your question, i.e., "Hey limitedaccess -- are you the same dumbass from SlickDeals?" leaves me wondering if you have any, even a small understanding of how the industry works. it appears doubtful, but perhaps if you were to direct us to your slickdeals posts we could confirm your status.

    Right now, it appears that your significant lack of understanding about what's going on in the memory markets, the Chinese market entry and its repercussions, motivations for price fixing, and a major key to the whole fraud, the timing of the events (which you clearly don't understand), excludes you from any serious conversations.
  • Beaver M. - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link

    Exactly. The same thing as in the HDD sector.
  • FullmetalTitan - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link

    Samsung opened FAB 3 in China specifically to address global (NAND) memory demands.
    The Korean complex produces all leading edge techs (10nm DRAM and SoC).
    Their U.S. foundry supplies dozens of customers.
    There is SURE to be another FAB announced by 2020.
    But I guess that isn't enough investment in new tech and production
  • Adramtech - Saturday, December 23, 2017 - link

    "Conveniently all 3 under estimated memory demand just slightly. in that there capacity is just nearly enough to fulfill demand but just slightly behind the demand curve"

    Are you serious? Do you think forecasting worldwide memory demand is an exact science? If it were there would never be low prices, ever.

    Why would any one of these companies spend $5B to build a fab just to risk creating oversupply like 2016 where DRAM drops like a rock, so they can go out of business and Samsung can be a Monopoly, or so the government can bail them out?

    "Conveniently none of the 3 is attempting take market share from each other."
    False, First, Samsung has 50% market share, any more and they run afoul of anti trust concerns. They're not going on a suicide mission for more of the pie when the pie itself is getting larger. Second, SK Hynix and Micron are absolutely trying to take market share from Samsung or each other. Higher memory prices helps Samsung and hurts Apple, of course they want that scenario to play out as long as possible.

    "Conveniently all 3 will have significant capacity expansion coming online and capex ramp in 2019."

    Um no, First, it takes 2-3 years to build a fab with any meaningful output. To complete a plant before 2019, they would have had to plan a fab in 2016, which was right in the middle of when chip companies were losing money and just struggling to stay alive. The only company in position to do that back then was Samsung. As far as Capex expenditure, is $26B not enough for you? Also, Micron's capex is currently highest in company history.
  • MrSpadge - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link

    DDR4-3600 at stock voltage - impressive! Now JEDEC and Ryzen's memory controller should better catch up a bit.
  • CheapSushi - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link

    I really hope Zen+ or Zen2 use higher speeds for ECC; current 2400MHz is just a bit cripple for AMD EPYC. Current certified JEDEC ECC standard is 3200MHz, yet no kit exists in the wild and no system supports it. These 3600 ICs sound amazing. I hope we get to use them.
  • Snowleopard3000 - Sunday, December 31, 2017 - link

    So does this mean that high end laptops like Sager, MSI, Eurocom, Origin with 4 x ram slots will now support 128gb of DDR-4 ram or are they still limited to 64gb of DDR-4 ram?
  • RavenRampkin - Tuesday, August 4, 2020 - link

    The year is 2020, these are unicorns.

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