Fire at DRAM chip plant likely to cause slight global disruption in supply

A major fire at a Chinese plant run by SK Hynix is likely to cause a global disruption in supply of memory chips.

At any given time the plant is responsible for up to 10 percent of the world's supply of DRAM chips, and the plant also accounts for almost half of SK Hynix's production capability.

Hynix itself accounts for 30 percent of the world's share of DRAM chips. The company is one of the largest three suppliers, next to Micron and Samsung.

If production continues to be halted at the plant, shipments for 11 million notebooks and 10 million smartphones will be delayed.

Additionally, due to the supply crunch, prices have gone up 3 percent since the fire, the biggest one-month increase in over three years.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 7 Sep 2013 19:59

ivymike

First it's hard drives, now memory.....Makes me wonder if there's something more sinister going on.....

7.9.2013 21:09 #1

Bozobub

Well, for hard drives, it's hard to think that; it's not like anyone has much control over vast floods >.> .

7.9.2013 23:51 #2

KillerBug

Hmmm...so this factory accounts for 10% of the world supply, wouldn't that make it responsible for 1/3 of 30% of the world supply, not 1/2 of 30%?

Originally posted by Bozobub: Well, for hard drives, it's hard to think that; it's not like anyone has much control over vast floods >.> . Considering the tiny amount of time it took to get production back up, the extremely long time that prices stayed well above pre-flood levels, and the fact that all the manufacturers shifted their prices the same even if none of their suppliers were affected at all (and then kept prices up at the same levels for the same amount of time)...I'd say there was certainly something very sinister going on. Something tells me we are looking at a different situation here tho...if they fail to deliver on time, companies like Samsung will step in and fill the gap for about the same price, just to take their customers away. For the most part memory is memory...lots of companies make it (and generally have unused capacity), it is essentially public knowledge how to do it well, and you don't need to retrofit a whole factory with new machines to switch to memory production. If anything, the small price increase will cause more manufacturing resulting in the biggest price drops in 5 years.

9.9.2013 03:18 #3

pmshah

@Killer bug.

Bad math is my point too.

Has anyone actually done any survey of physical damage to the Hard Disk manufacturing plants? If the floods had actually damaged the plant and machinery recovery would have taken much longer. As is the standard practice in so called free economy and capitalism charge the maximum that the market will bear. So I was most certainly not surprised at the delay in the HDD prices begin a downward trend. Did you notice the fact that standard 2.5" bare HDDs are not available in any capacity over 750 gb while USB powered external ones are available up to 2 GB. The fancy pricing is for what, just a moulded plastic casing and a US$ 3/- USB to Sata interface ??? So who is screwing who?

14.9.2013 22:03 #4

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