Micron DRAM factory mishap in Taiwan results in fab suspension

[HEXUS]

Worldwide DRAM market disruption is expected, with prices set to rise.

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[MonkeyKing1969]

Read more.

I don't think I want to even know the complexities of how these chips are made that too much nitrogen (78% of the air we breath) can contaminate the equipment. I hope they get on track soon.

[Kanoe]

I don't think I want to even know the complexities of how these chips are made that too much nitrogen (78% of the air we breath) can contaminate the equipment.

I would have said that its more likely the other way that the equipment was feeding Nitrogen plus something else it wasn't meant to that means there was contamination.

I imagine they manufacture them in close to a 100% Nitrogen environment as possible because its inert and won't react with the materials they are using.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

So another excuse for bumping up the price of DRAM,etc - remember the HDD companies used the floods hitting their factories to raise the price of HDDs for years while cutting warranties.

I fully expect once the prices have risen that even after it is all fixed they won't be in a rush to drop prices.

[shaithis]

Yup, DRAM was getting cheap again....

[Jonj1611]

Let the profiteering begin!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Yup, DRAM was getting cheap again....

I still remember when a whole lot of then got caught for price fixing RAM.

If they start doing that crap again I won't be upgrading my platform any time soon.

[HW90]

Yup, DRAM was getting cheap again....

Not that cheap, it' still double what it was a year ago

[kompukare]

I still remember when a whole lot of then got caught for price fixing RAM.

If they start doing that crap again I won't be upgrading my platform any time soon.

While this is true (the term used was some play on DRAM Samurai although even back then most players were Korean), what is often forgotten is how risky the DRAM and NAND business is with $billions of losses and razor-thin margins most years. Now that there are really only 3 players left (Samsung, Hynix and Micron), of course they will try to raise prices.
Price freefall is usually when one player thinks they can force some others bankrupt either via deep pockets or because they believe they're more efficient. Can't see that happening again soon.

[LSG501]

Well looks like I'll be sticking with 16GB for a while longer.... wasn't like the ram I need isn't over twice the price I paid for it already....

[watercooled]

I'm just glad I bought all the RAM I should need before the latest price hikes - this just reinforces it. It's quite depressing looking at some invoices from a few years ago with current memory prices.

Something seems to have happened with NAND over the past calendar year or so - I bought a 480GB Sandisk SSD for £80ish in an Amazon flash sale around a year ago - you can't get anything close to that at the moment! I wonder how much of that has to do with the 3D conversion/ramp temporarily reducing capacity?

[azrael-]

<SNIP>
...the term used was some play on DRAM Samurai although even back then most players were Korean...
<SNIP>

The term you were looking for is DRAMurai. Remembered it immediately. What I can't remember is who coined it. The name Mike Magee from The Register/The Inquirer (way back when) comes to mind.

[GinoLatino]

...what is often forgotten is how risky the DRAM and NAND business is with $billions of losses and razor-thin margins most years.

RAM are almost double the lowest price they reached a while ago... I won't call that "razor-thin margins".

[mtyson]

Following queries by Taiwan's DigiTimes, Micron has clarified that:
"there was no nitrogen leaking incident nor evacuation of personnel. A minor event did occurred at the facility, but operations are recovering speedily without material impact to the business." DigiTimes adds that if any impact is felt it will likely be upon LPDDR4 DRAM customers such as Apple.

[kompukare]

RAM are almost double the lowest price they reached a while ago... I won't call that "razor-thin margins".

Depends. Margins would be something measured over a few years or decades. The fact, that there are now almost no players left suggests that historically margins have been razor-thin even if there always have been these occasional spikes in prices. Since a DRAM semiconductor factory costs $billions to build it's capital costs have to be accounted over years so a few annual high profit years have to be balanced against the lean or loss-making years.

Sure the $billions price tags of factory is a major barrier to entry, but just a few years ago there were way more players and they either sold or went bankrupt so the risk versus profit is not that favourable.

A quick look at some of the players shows.
Micron: Revenue $12.4 billion, profit $270 million, rough margin 2.17%
Hynix: Revenue $15.98, profit $3.67 billion, rough margin 23%.
Samsung: too hard to get the figures for Samsung Semiconductor and even with them, which part would be DRAM/NAND?

The term you were looking for is DRAMurai. Remembered it immediately. What I can't remember is who coined it. The name Mike Magee from The Register/The Inquirer (way back when) comes to mind.

Yes Mike Magee sounds right. A pity that there no longer is much tech media willing to take a more jaundice view of corporate PR. To think that Guy Keyney used to have a major column in such a major magazine like PCW and he used to write some insightful comments about news releases etc. which the tame press nowadays would not do.