Over the week September 6-13, price for mainstream DDR 32Mbx8 grew from September 6's US$2.54 to September 8's US$2.59 but went then down to US$2.56 on September 13 at Asia markets. Efficiently tested (eTT) 32Mbx8 DDR chips were traded from US$2.28 to US$2.33 and went down to US$2.27 during the same timeframe.

The weak pricing performance was caused by declining demand in China market and sluggish transactions at European markets. Some Taiwan module houses even dumped their inventory to the spot market, thus dragged the prices down further.

Sources indicated that two Korea DRAM makers have increased supply for DDR 512Mb 64Mbx8 chips but decreased supply for DDR 256Mb 32Mbx8 chips. DRAMeXchange observe that DDR 512Mb 64Mbx8 price was then dropped further from US$5.93 to US$5.85 accordingly. Noted that spot price for this part, however, still enjoy a 14% premium over the prices of two DDR 256Mbx8 chips.

The prices for major brand DDR2 512Mb chips remained stable within the range of US$5.21 to US$5.23 while prices for non-major brands were slashed from US$3.89 to US$3.86.

Demand not yet stimulate by coming holiday in China

DRAM traders, distributors and buyers from China have not yet preparing inventory to meet potential demand during early October. Base on our checking at the channels, no significant orders are seen at the market yet. Checking the spot market transactions from August, despite DRAM makers indicated that shipments to PC OEMs is still on the rise during August to September and they did expect DRAM demand to remain strong through October, demand at the spot market remained lackluster in August and only stabilized in September.

8Gb NAND Flash price grew by a slight 1.5% to US$46.74