Yukio Sakamoto, president and CEO of Elpida Memory Inc, revealed his views on the future of the DRAM industry at the company's business presentation for analysts Sept 9, 2008 (See related article).
Commenting on the current status of the DRAM industry, Sakamoto said, "Two years will have passed by the end of the next quarter (the October-December 2008 quarter) since the ongoing slowdown began. Such an extremely severe situation has never continued for two years before."
He also indicated his view on DRAM demand, saying, "The growth rate of bit demand will slow down from now." He said it is because "the growth of a DRAM volume per PC and electronics sales will both lose momentum."
Sakamoto, however, predicted DRAM supply will slow even more than the demand.
"(Due to the sluggish DRAM market), DRAM manufacturers have implemented almost no new capital investment for the past one year," he said. "At this moment, DRAM manufacturers aren't spending any capital to increase 50nm-generation production capacity and are only applying flash memory lines to DRAM production."
Taking these factors into consideration, "The DRAM market is expected to improve in the first half of 2009," Sakamoto said.
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