Elpida Bankruptcy to Increase DRAM Prices, Say Analysts

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billybobser

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got 8 gigs is current setup, not set to change for 5 years I reckon given that I'll be migrating ivy/sandy next year and their lack of reliance on ram.

Ram has been sold purely on marketting and fancy numbers and rarely on performance. I imagine people's choices have been more swayed on colour than on benchies. Prices go up, and people will stop buying (as they should have enough overfed by now) or go for the cheaper options.

 

Unlimited1980

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The prices are still down & cheap.
So just don't waist time and buy all the RAM, that you think, you will nedd in the comin 2 Year 'till DDR4 is rouling the market (starting 2013, roaring 2014).
 

DRosencraft

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Wasn't there an article just a few weeks ago claiming that DRAM manufacturers were going to start ramping production back up again becuase they had reached the supply/demand equilibrium? It may be my lack of understanding of the intricacies of markets and what not, but don't you price your products based on the cost you incur making them? In other words, if you make a million chips last quarter, but only sell 3/4 of a million, don't you just make 3/4 of a million the next quarter, using the left over 1/4 of a million from before as oversupply in case of a production miss this quarter?

I don't understand why these memory chip makers are having so much trouble figuring out how many chips they need to make. I really can't think of another industry that has had so much trouble for so long figuring out their supply/demand structure. I meanm, Elpidia is a huge name in memory. There's no reason it should have gone bankrupt. It sounds to me like they got greedy, tried to push up production thinking they would certainly be able to sell all of it and make a huge profit, assuming the market saturation wouldn't catch up to them.
 

A Bad Day

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"Alright ladies and gentlewomen, lets start cutting back on the amount of RAM in our laptops and desktops from 4 GB to 2 GB. That includes computers with i7 processors and mid-range graphic cards."
 

Marco925

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[citation][nom]amdfreak[/nom]never heard of this company before.[/citation]

Pull open your computer and don't look at the Dimm, but look at the actual little black chips, ALOT of DIMMs have Elpida chips on them, plus we had that price fixing scheme last year.
 

lp231

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It's not like there is a natural disaster affecting all dram makers like we are at currently with HDDs.
Elpida makes DRAM and they OEM to Ram makers like Crucial, Kingston, and others.
Elpida isn't the only one in the world, you have micron, samsung, nanya, etc.
 

lp231

Splendid
[citation][nom]amdfreak[/nom]never heard of this company before.[/citation]
It's because they don't sell their own ram. If buy value ram (those without heat spreaders), you may be able to see some uses Elpidia.
 

dco

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This is not really going to make that much of an impact. A 15.5% increase on 8GB of RAM mean it goes from $40 to $46.2, sure any price increase sucks but it's not that big a deal in the scheme of the cost of a new build
 

azgard

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[citation][nom]DRosencraft[/nom]Wasn't there an article just a few weeks ago claiming that DRAM manufacturers were going to start ramping production back up again becuase they had reached the supply/demand equilibrium? It may be my lack of understanding of the intricacies of markets and what not, but don't you price your products based on the cost you incur making them? In other words, if you make a million chips last quarter, but only sell 3/4 of a million, don't you just make 3/4 of a million the next quarter, using the left over 1/4 of a million from before as oversupply in case of a production miss this quarter? I don't understand why these memory chip makers are having so much trouble figuring out how many chips they need to make. I really can't think of another industry that has had so much trouble for so long figuring out their supply/demand structure. I meanm, Elpidia is a huge name in memory. There's no reason it should have gone bankrupt. It sounds to me like they got greedy, tried to push up production thinking they would certainly be able to sell all of it and make a huge profit, assuming the market saturation wouldn't catch up to them.[/citation]

Here's some business economics for you. At the volume of production they have it cost's relatively little more to produce full output vs reduced output. Foundries are required to produce near max output almost constantly to make money as the operating cost's to keep a plant up and running consume a vast amount of the operating costs. Now they could rampdown production and try to 'meet' the market, the problem is if they miss a market forcast and end up short, they lose contract's to competitors and this has the potential to cost them a lot more money then an oversupply.
 
Well, Elpida has been saying for a while that this was likely going to happen. I'm not sure why they are having problems like this when the other DRAM manufacturers aren't. Maybe they didn't diversify their products like many of the other companies did (Samsung is a great example). I don't know of any Elpida products besides their memory.

Well, at least DRAM prices don;t matter too much like hard drive prices did. If DRAM goes up even 50%, it's a difference of only $15-30 for 2x4GB and I don't think they will go up even that much. Of course, any price hikes suck, but DRAM has been cheap enough lately... I wouldn't mind it if hard drive prices would just go back down.
 

__Miguel_

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Hopefully this isn't Qimonda all over again... That time, prices doubled (at least) here in Portugal (even with a factory in the country!), and it took more than a year for prices to settle down again.

As for price increases, they have been climbing for at least two months now (about €1.25/GB), since news of Elpida going under started being understood as the most likely scenario.
 

Unlimited1980

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Miguel, exactly this could happen again!
The difference is: the DDR3-memory won't never get really cheap again after the coming pricehike, cause then comes DDR4 wich is starting in 2013.
Traditionally is the "old" memory technology expensier then the new one.
Let' look at DDR2.

Therefore I said: buy all the DDR3-memory you'll EVER need NOW.
 
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