TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Nov. 29, 2005 -- As approaching the month end, most DRAM makers aggressively dumping chips to spot market in order to counter the potential inventory pressure. Although marketers in the US were away for Thanksgiving holidays, brokers still actively seek for deals.

Mainstream DRAM chip DDR256Mb 32Mbx8 400MHz was traded down 3.7% (US$2.17 to US$2.09) and DDR 512Mb down 4.25% (US$4.47 to US$4.28) over the week November 22-29. DDR2 NMB (non-major-brand) was also down 2.5% from US$3.18 to US$3.10. Low-density SDRAM 1Mx16 and 4Mx16 were traded unchanged at US$0.92 and US$0.6 respectively.

Suffered from the stock releasing pressure, some DRAM makers have bundled DDR2 chips with NAND Flash for sale. However, buying incentives at the DRAM spot market were still listless as players believe DRAM prices should keep staying downward. The drop rate of DDR 512Mb was larger than DDR 256Mb as Hynix stopped offering DDR 256Mb 32Mx8 chips, which interprets the absence of 256Mb chip at the market.

Noted that the spot price of DDR 512Mb still comes higher than two individual DDR 256Mb chips. DRAMeXchange notices that the major eTT (UTT) supplier requested its distributors not to sell any chip under US$1.95, yet some traders offered price at as low as US$1.88 at Hong Kong.

Disregard the overall DRAM spot market is still shadow under an industry-wide pessimistic outlook, some players still anticipate that the upcoming Chinese new year during late January to spur a slight demand growth.

Regarding the NAND Flash market, the higher densities parts were exposed to larger drop. Spot prices of 8Gb and 4Gb reported drop of 5.1% (US$53.86 to US$51.12) and 5.76% (US$29.84 to US$28.12) last week. Prices for the lower-density parts, 2Gb and 1Gb, came with a relatively smaller drop and were traded down 1.29% (US$15.51 to US$15.31) and 1% (US$8.15 to US$8.07). Some brokers had lowered 1Gb prices in order to encourage demand but related prices still trended down from US$8.2 to US$8.12.

The most popular NAND Flash parts last week was the 2Gb chip from Micron, 4Gb from Hynix and 8Gb from Samsung with the attractive quotes they offered. Of which, the 4Gb from Hynix is the most popular item as it only supply chips to its direct account customers. However, some excess inventory has released to spot market at China. Marketers are concern about the impact over pricing trend as this batch of inventory may arrive by end of November.

For detail DRAM and NAND Flash spot price records, please visit: DRAM, NAND Flash.