DRAM transaction put on hold temporally; no positive price-swing to emerge in near term

Spot transaction was put on hold in the week Jun2-12 as the major eTT (uTT) chipmaker PSC that hold its stock releasing to the spot market for two weeks prompted memory traders and module houses await for clearer price signals following the anticipated official prices from PSC.

The weak DRAM price trend mirrored the recess of monthly PC shipment in May with major motherboard makers and notebook OEMs all trimmed down their shipment forecast for 2Q06. DRAMeXchange observes the absence of strong growth momentum, as well as an obvious demand rollover, as downstream channels still demand time to digest inventory.

Overall DRAM prices stayed notionally stable on a weekly-basis. DXI rebounded slightly from last week's 3,333 to 3,340.

Price of DDR 256Mb 32Mbx8 400MHz was pegged at US$2.40 while the higher density 512Mb part gained slightly at US$4.86. Price of 256Mb eTT (uTT) chip enjoyed slight growth from US$2.35 to US$2.37.

For DDR2, no major demand-resume was spot at the market yet. Prices of DDR2 64Mbx8 533MHz maintained at US$4.87 while the same-specification eTT (uTT) reported flat at US$3.77.

Weak transaction fails price growth momentum with only 8Gb counters drop.

Persistent sluggish NAND Flash demand weighed on prices with slight sequential drop last week, especially when consumers wait aside for clearer price signals to emerge after Computex Taipei (June 6-10). Some distributors who attempted to lower quotes prior to the upcoming available capacity led marketers to request for even lower quotes on speculation purpose, rather than spurring demand up.

Prices of all density NAND trended downward with 2Gb lead the fall at 1.7% on a weekly basis, after experiencing weeks of gains. Only prices of 8Gb resisted downward pressure with a slight 0.2% gain.

Despite Computex did not stimulate demand growth during the show, DRAMeXchange anticipates demand to be encouraged somehow after the show, though the actual demand growth is still ambiguous as most demand had been feed completely over the past month.

Mature PMR-based HDDs deliver mammoth storage capability

Toshiba preps 200GB 2.5-inch HDD launch

Toshiba announced recently that it has developed a new hard disk drive (HDD), MK2036GSS, featuring a so-called highest density size of 200GB and houses the world's highest areal density at 178 GB per square inch in a standard 9.5mm mobile PC format. Toshiba said this perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology based HDD that fits storage-thrust demand for high-end notebook (NB) will commence volume production from August 2006.

Sources hinted that Toshiba should able to generate an annual revenues growth of 17% from its HDD business unit during 2005-2008. Company CEO Atsutoshi Nishida, at the meantime, said Toshiba would budget 65 billion yen (US$530 billion) to expand production capacity and attempted to boost the production capacity by 1.7-fold in 2008 from 2005's level.

Rival Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST), on the other hand, also announced that it had started sampling its PMR-based 2.5-inch HDD, Travelstar 5K160, from May 17, 2006. This HDD that houses 131.5GB areal density will commence in volume production in 3Q06.

Seagate highlights new HDD lineup with ten brand new PMR-supported models

Seagate introduces a new storage lineup in early June including a 2.5-inch HDD and its first 1.8-inch HDD with both slated to start official sales in 1Q07. All the newly introduced HDDs support PMR.

Momentus 5400PSD (power saving disk) that comes with a highest density of 160GB brings flash memory and hard drive on a single hybrid device. The HDD features two individual platters and could reduce power consumption rate by as much as 30-40% under optimized situation.

Seagate also unveils the new Momentus 5400 FDE that supports data encryption software and the drive could house as much as 160GB density. The company also prepares to deliver a 750GB 3.5-inch DB35-series HDD.

Seageate completes Maxtor acquisition

Seagate Technology LLC announced during late May that it had completed the acquisition of Maxtor and the company now hold complete stake of the new entity. Seagate announced the acquisition deal in December, 2005 and finalized the deal of May 22, 2006.

Meaningful business operation from Maxtor will only execute until early 2007 and there are no fundamental changes to Maxtor currently. The Maxtor brand will be kept as before but half of the original Maxtor workforce will be laid off. The remaining half should most assigned to perform their duties at Asia Pacific branches.