Intel and AMD will be releasing new CPUs that support DDR5 DRAM solutions for PCs and servers this year. In response, the DRAM industry led by South Korean suppliers is developing solutions to complement the arrival of the new CPUs. In the midst of the gradual shift to DDR5, DRAM suppliers will also scale back the supply of DDR3 solutions, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. With Korean suppliers accelerating their withdrawal from DDR3 production, Taiwanese suppliers yet to kick off mass production using newly installed capacities, and Chinese suppliers falling short of their expected yield rate, the global supply of DDR3 solutions will undergo an impending decline. With respect to the demand side, however, not only has the supply of networking chips been ramping up, but material shortage issues are also gradually easing. As such, buyers are now procuring DDR3 solutions ahead of time, resulting in a tight supply and demand situation in the DDR3 market. TrendForce therefore expects DDR3 DRAM prices to recover from a bearish first quarter and undergo a 0-5% QoQ increase in 2Q22.

The next-generation "Ada Lovelace" graphics architecture powering NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 40-series graphics cards, could see a significant increase in on-die cache memory, according to leaked source-code related to drivers or firmware, seen by XinoAssassin on Twitter. The source-code leak emanates from the recent large-scale cyber-attack on NVIDIA. When comparing source files related to Ampere and Ada architectures, XinoAssassin noticed lines that reference large cache slices.

From this, it was analyzed that the top-of-the-line AD102 silicon will have 96 MB of last-level cache on the silicon; the AD103 and AD104 chips have 64 MB; the AD106 has 48 MB, and the smallest AD107 has 32 MB. Compare this to the 6 MB on the GA102, puny 4 MB on the GA103 and GA104; 3 MB on the GA106, and 2 MB on the GA107. NVIDIA is known to make innovations in generational memory bandwidth increase and memory management, with each new architecture. The company could tap into even faster versions of GDDR6X memory it co-developed with Micron (GDDR6 with PAM4 signaling).

Micron, today announced it is sampling the world's first vertically-integrated 176-layer NAND solid-state drive (SSD) for the data center. The Micron 7450 SSD with NVMe delivers quality-of-service (QoS) latency at or below 2 milliseconds (ms), a wide capacity range and the broadest set of form factors available to meet the needs of the most demanding data center workloads.

This new data center SSD includes Micron's industry-leading NAND, which contains 176 layers of storage cells and proven CMOS-under-the-array technology, to deliver an ultraefficient design. Integrated with Micron's own DRAM, internally developed SoC and associated firmware, this vertically integrated SSD enables the company to rapidly respond to customer needs in the market and support strengthened device security.

Much of the globalized world's logistics is still in disarray from the COVID-19 pandemic, and now, Russia has thrown its weight on the matter through its invasion of Ukraine. As the initial offensive played out in the early hours of February 24th, semiconductor industry analysts turned to the situation with a prying eye - how exactly could this deadlock, and the following political and economical sanctions towards Russia, impact the semiconductor industry? The consensus seems to be a favorable one: not that much.

"The semiconductor industry has a diverse set of suppliers of key materials and gases, so we do not believe there are immediate supply disruption risks related to Russia and Ukraine," said John Neuffer, chief executive and president of the Semiconductor Industry Association. That sentiment was echoed by Intel; a company representative told Bloomberg that the company does not anticipate "(...) any impact on our supply chain. Our strategy of having a diverse, global supply chain minimizes our risk of potential local interruptions."

In 4Q21, NAND Flash bit shipments grew by only 3.3% QoQ, a significant decrease from the nearly 10% in 3Q21, according to TrendForce's investigations. ASP fell by nearly 5% and the overall industry posted revenue of US$18.5 billion, a QoQ decrease of 2.1%. This was primarily due to a decline in the purchase demand of various products and a market shift to oversupply causing a drop in contract prices. In 4Q21, with the exception of enterprise SSD, the supply of which was limited by insufficient upstream components, the prices of other NAND Flash products such as eMMC, UFS, and client SSD, all fell.

TrendForce's summary of NAND Flash market sales performance in 2021 is as follows: although there have been signs of weakening since 2H21, thanks to remote services and cloud demand driven by the pandemic, revenue performance still grew significantly compared to 2020. Revenue reached US$68.6 billion, up 21.1% YoY, the second-biggest increase since 2018.

Out of nowhere, Micron has announced that it will end production of its Ballistix RAM products that are the high-performance and gamer focused RAM products from its Crucial brand. The details available so far doesn't state a reason for the discontinuation of these products. That said, Crucial has launched a wide range of DDR5 products, but so far none under the Ballistix brand and that is obviously a permanent move now. The company said it would focus on "the development of Micron's DDR5 client and server product roadmap, along with the expansion of the Crucial memory and storage product portfolio."

Furthermore the press release mentioned that "the company will continue to support the performance compute and gaming communities with its award-winning SSD products, such as the Crucial P5 Plus Gen 4 PCIe NVMe SSD, Crucial P2 Gen 3 NVMe SSD, and the popular Crucial X6 and Crucial X8 portable SSDs." It seems like Micron has decided to change the focus of it's consumer focused Crucial brand yet again, as the company has done several times in the past, but it's going to remove a major player in the consumer DRAM market, which isn't a good thing, especially as Micron was one of few DRAM manufacturers to offer high-end RAM modules, since neither Samsung or SK-Hynix is in this market. That said, it looks like Crucial will at least continue to offer its standard RAM modules, but they tend to follow JEDEC spec and aren't particularly exciting.

Despite its technical advantages over NAND flash, Intel's Optane memory technology never really took off in the consumer space, largely due to its much higher costs. Based on details from Intel's SEC filings, it would appear that its corporate customers haven't been overly impressed either, as Intel filed a US$576 million loss in 2020 with regards to its Optane business.

As to if this trend continued in 2021, we're going to have to wait and see, but it looks like the losses are set to continue based on its revenue figures, according to Blocks and Files. With this in mind, it seems like Micron's exit from 3D XPoint memory isn't so hard to understand, as the technology is clearly too costly to make up for the benefits on offer, for most of its potential customer base. Transitions to higher-density 3D XPoint memory has also been slow, which might be yet another reason customers have shied away from using it, even as a caching solution in storage servers. It wouldn't surprise us if Intel moves on from Optane/3D XPoint memory in the near future, as the company seems to have shifted its focus firmly away from storage solutions.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced the publication of the next version of its High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) DRAM standard: JESD238 HBM3, available for download from the JEDEC website. HBM3 is an innovative approach to raising the data processing rate used in applications where higher bandwidth, lower power consumption and capacity per area are essential to a solution's market success, including graphics processing and high-performance computing and servers.

NAND Flash prices for 1Q22 are expected to decline by 8-13% QoQ, compared to TrendForce's previous forecast of 10-15% QoQ, primarily due to PC OEMs' increased orders for PCIe 3.0 products and the impact of the lockdown in Xi'an on PC OEMs' price negotiation approaches. To mitigate potential risks in logistics, NAND Flash buyers are now more willing to accept a narrower decline in contract prices in order to obtain their products sooner. However, as the Xi'an lockdown has not noticeably affected the local fabs' manufacturing operations, the movement of NAND Flash contract prices going forward will likely remain relatively unaffected by the lockdown.

In addition, TrendForce finds that the daily number of new COVID-19 cases in Xi'an has recently undergone a noticeable drop, and the local government has also announced that that the emergency level has been downgraded. As such, Samsung's and Micron's local production facilities are returning to normal with respect to workforce and operational capacity. Samsung's local production base manufactures NAND Flash products, whereas Micron's local production base is responsible for the testing and packaging of DRAM chips as well as the assembly of DRAM modules. The impacts of the lockdown mainly relate to delays in the deliveries of memory products to customers. On the other hand, the event has not caused a tangible loss in memory production.

Despite having sold its fab in Lehi, Utah to TI back in October last year, it looks like Micron is ready to build a new, most likely more advanced fab and rumours are now circulating that it might end up in Austin, Texas. Micron currently has two fabs in Virginia and one in Idaho, plus four in Singapore, four in Taiwan, one in the PRC and one in Japan. It should be noted that Micron used to have a fab outside of Dallas, so Texas isn't entirely unfamiliar ground for Micron. Initially Micron is said to have been eyeing North Carolina for its new fab, but that apparently fell through recently.

Micron announced last year that it's looking to invest some US$150 million in expanding and improving upon its current fabs, plus potentially building additional ones. In addition to Texas, California and Arizona are apparently still in the running, although it's unclear when Micron will make a final decision. The fab will obviously be producing either DRAM or flash memory, but it's not clear what markets Micron is looking to expand its production in, but DRAM seems more likely based on current market conditions. The company is said to be looking for a location that has not only the suitable staff required, but is also looking for the right cost and reliability when it comes to utilities, as well as regulatory friendliness.

A disturbing trend among entry-level M.2 NVMe SSDs is a complete disregard from manufacturers for consistency in the brands and types of the various key components of the drives. The companies simply advertise a certain set of performance and endurance numbers, which serve as ends to reach by whatever means (of controller or NAND flash combos). This was recently illustrated with the Kingston NV1, which presents an extreme case of "hardware lottery." You can get either a SMI or Phison controller, and either a TLC or QLC NAND flash (combinations thereof).

Cutting through all this, ADATA is making a reassuring guarantee with regards to its recently announced entry-level NVMe product, the XPG Atom 50. In an exclusive comment to TechPowerUp, the company said that all XPG Atom 50 drives in the market will come with a consistent combination of controller and NAND flash. The drive combines an Innogrit IG5220 RainierQX controller with Micron "B47R" 176-layer 3D TLC NAND flash chips, a combo ADATA guarantees it will never break. We recently reviewed the 1 TB variant of this drive, and found it to offer excellent performance leveraging PCIe Gen4, at a price you'd typically find PCIe Gen3 drives at.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced it has begun volume shipments of the world's first 176-layer QLC NAND SSD. Built with the most advanced NAND architecture, Micron's 176-layer QLC NAND delivers the industry's leading storage density and optimized performance for a broad range of data-rich applications. Designed for use cases spanning client and data center environments, Micron's transformative new NAND technology is now available with the introduction of the Micron 2400 SSD, the world's first 176-layer PCIe Gen4 QLC SSD for client applications. The new 176-layer QLC NAND will also be incorporated into select Micron Crucial consumer SSDs, and available as a component for system designers.

Micron's groundbreaking 176-layer QLC NAND provides a layer count and density unprecedented in QLC NAND flash and follows Micron's delivery of the industry's first 176-layer TLC NAND. Additionally, Micron's 176-layer QLC NAND enables 33% higher I/O speed and 24% lower read latency than Micron's prior generation solution. Its replacement-gate architecture is the only mass production QLC flash storage that combines charge trap with a CMOS-under-array design. These improvements are driving adoption of QLC SSDs in the client PC market, which is expected to triple QLC adoption by 2023, exceeding 35%, and reaching nearly 80% bit share in 2025.

During its quarterly earnings call, Micron confirmed that the lack of DDR5 memory in retail is not due to a shortage of DDR5 memory ICs, but rather due to a shortage of PMIC and VRM components. Micron said that "demand for DDR5 products is significantly exceeding supply due to non-memory component shortages impacting memory suppliers' ability to build DDR5 modules."

It would appear that demand ended up being higher than expected, due to the popularity of Intel's Alder Lake CPUs, with the DRAM module makers not having prepared enough stock of the new components that are required to make DDR5 DIMMs, which has resulted in the current lack of DDR5 modules in retail. Micron is working on its end to resolve this issue and has entered what it calls "strategic agreements to secure supply of certain components" and is expecting supply of said components to improve slowly in 2022. It seems like some of these components are also related to other products made by Micron, such as SSDs.

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) today announced results for its first quarter of fiscal 2022, which ended Dec. 2, 2021. "Micron delivered solid fiscal first quarter results led by strong product portfolio momentum," said Micron Technology President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra. "We are now shipping our industry-leading DRAM and NAND technologies across major end markets, and we delivered new solutions to data center, client, mobile, graphics and automotive customers. As powerful secular trends including 5G, AI, and EV adoption fuel demand growth, our technology leadership and world-class execution position us to create significant shareholder value in fiscal 2022 and beyond."

Demand for NAND Flash products will undergo a noticeable and cyclical downward correction in 1Q22 as major smartphone brands wind down their procurement activities for the peak season and ODMs prepare for the New Year holidays, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. As such, the NAND Flash market will remain in an oversupply situation, with prices continuing to undergo downward corrections accordingly. However, PC OEMs have been reinstating certain orders for client SSDs since early November in response to improvements in the supply of upstream semiconductor materials. By fulfilling these orders, suppliers are able to keep their inventory level relatively low, meaning they are not under as much pressure as previously expected to reduce inventory by lowering prices. Taking these factors into account, TrendForce expects NAND Flash ASP to undergo a 10-15% QoQ decline in 1Q22, during which NAND Flash prices will experience the most noticeable declines compared to the other quarters in 2022.

Regarding the price trend of NAND Flash products across the whole 2021, TrendForce further indicates that suppliers have actively transitioned their output to higher-layer technologies, resulting in a bit supply growth that noticeably outpaces demand, though the tight supply of components such as controller ICs and PMICs has constrained the production of NAND Flash end-products. Hence, the decline in contract prices of NAND Flash products has not been as severe as previously expected. Moving ahead to 2022, however, the supply of relevant components is expected to gradually improve, so the market for various NAND Flash products will also likely shift towards a noticeable oversupply. As a result, prices of NAND Flash products will steadily decline before the arrival of the peak season in 3Q22.

Micron Technology, one of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers and the only U.S.-based manufacturer of memory, today announced plans for its new memory design center in Midtown Atlanta, expanding the company's reach into the Southeast. The new site, which will open its doors for business in January 2022, enables Micron to increase its access to Atlanta's rich pool of technical talent to further advance its memory design and engineering leadership, while also driving a positive impact in the community. Micron aims to build strong partnerships with many institutions in the region including Emory University, Georgia Tech, Morehouse College, Spelman College and University of Georgia.

Headquartered in Boise, Idaho, Micron maintains U.S. offices in California, Colorado, Minnesota, Texas and Virginia and has a global manufacturing and research and development (R&D) network that spans 17 countries. Memory is at the leading edge of semiconductor manufacturing, requiring production of advanced technologies that are pushing the laws of physics. R&D investments in the field are critical for advancing DRAM innovation. Micron's Atlanta Design Center expansion will create up to 500 jobs across various STEM disciplines including computer hardware and electrical and electronic engineering.

NVIDIA's upcoming flagship graphics card, the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti (also known as RTX 3090 SUPER in some rumor circles); could feature the company's fastest memory solution for GeForce, according to a Uniko's Hardware report. The card maxes out not just the 384-bit bus width of the "GA102" silicon, but also uses Micron-sourced "MT61K512M32KPA-21U" GDDR6X memory chips, which are rated for 21 Gbps date-rates. This results in a roughly 7.7% increase in memory bandwidth over the RTX 3090, with a whopping 1008 GB/s on tap. The title of the highest memory bandwidth on a client-segment graphics card would still go to the Radeon VII, which uses 4096-bit HBM2 to achieve 1024 GB/s. The RTX 3090 Ti also maxes out the "GA102" silicon, by enabling all 84 streaming multiprocessors (SM).

The growth of the NAND Flash market in 3Q21 was primarily driven by strong demand from the data center and smartphone industries, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. More specifically, NAND Flash suppliers' hyperscaler and enterprise clients kept up their procurement activities that began in 2Q21 in order to deploy products based on new processor platforms. Major smartphone brands, on the other hand, likewise expanded their NAND Flash procurement activities during the quarter as they prepared to release their new flagship models. As such, clients in both server and smartphone industries made significant contributions to the revenue growth of the NAND Flash industry for 3Q21. At the same time, however, suppliers also warned that orders from PC OEMs began showing signs of decline. On the whole, the industry's quarterly total NAND Flash bit shipment increased by nearly 11% QoQ for 3Q21, and the overall NAND Flash ASP rose by nearly 4% QoQ for the same quarter. Thanks to rising prices and expanding shipments, the quarterly total NAND Flash revenue increased by 15% QoQ to a new record high of US$18.8 billion in 3Q21.

As the global vaccination rate rose, and border restrictions in Europe and North America eased, social activities also began to enter a period of recovery, with the consumer electronics market seemingly ready for the arrival of the traditional peak season in 2H21, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. At the same time, however, the global supply chain was affected by delays in maritime transport, skyrocketing shipping costs, and component shortages, in addition to already-prohibitive price hikes for certain components in 1H21. Given the parallel rise in both material and manufacturing costs, the market for end products has not undergone the expected cyclical upturn in 2H21. Even so, the overall demand for and shipment of smartphones, notebook computers, and monitors experienced QoQ increases in 3Q21, thereby driving up businesses for major OSAT (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) companies. For 3Q21, the revenues of the top 10 OSAT companies reached US$8.89 billion, a 31.6% YoY increase.

Micron Technology, Inc. announced today that MediaTek Inc. has validated Micron's low-power double data rate 5X (LPDDR5X) DRAM for MediaTek's new Dimensity 9000 5G flagship chipset for smartphones. Micron is the first semiconductor company to sample and validate this fastest, most advanced mobile memory in the industry and has shipped the first batch of samples of LPDDR5X built on its first-to-market 1α (1-alpha) node. Designed for high-end and flagship smartphones, Micron's LPDDR5X allows the smartphone ecosystem to unlock the next wave of data-intensive applications powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and 5G innovation.

The market delivery and validation of Micron's industry-leading 1α-based LPDDR5X solidifies its product innovation and leadership in the mobile ecosystem, following industry-first launches for LPDDR5, 1α-based LPDDR4X, 176-layer NAND-based UFS 3.1 and uMCP5 solutions. This most recent milestone follows quickly on the heels of JEDEC's July release of the LPDDR5X extension to LPDDR5, created to offer higher bandwidth and memory speed for enhanced 5G communication and performance while still conserving power. Micron has validated samples supporting data rates up to 7.5 Gb/s, with samples supporting data rates up to 8.533 Gb/s to follow. Peak LPDDR5X speeds of 8.533 Gb/s deliver up to 33% faster performance than previous-generation LPDDR5.

"Innovating cutting-edge smartphone experiences requires memory technology built to address the massive bandwidth demands of the mobile market," said Raj Talluri, senior vice president and general manager of Micron's Mobile Business Unit. "Our collaboration with MediaTek to validate the world's most advanced mobile memory empowers the ecosystem to deliver the next wave of rich mobile features enhanced by 5G and AI."

Despite the forecasted 18.6% YoY growth in total DRAM bit supply next year, the global DRAM market is still expected to shift from a shortage situation to an oversupply, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. This shift can primarily be attributed to the fact that, not only are most buyers now carrying a relatively high level of DRAM inventory, but DRAM bit demand is also expected to increase by only 17.1% YoY in 2022. On the price front, the oversupply situation will result in a drop in DRAM ASP in 2022 but not a major decline in annual DRAM revenue, thanks to the oligopolistic nature of the DRAM industry. Annual DRAM revenue for 2022 is expected to reach US$91.54 billion, which represents a slight YoY increase of 0.3%.

Based on an analysis of DRAM sufficiency ratio (which refers to the surplus of supply in comparison with demand) for each quarter in 2022, TrendForce forecasts a 15% YoY decrease in DRAM ASP for 2022, with prices undergoing the more noticeable declines during the first half of the year. Heading into 2H22, however, owing to the rise in DDR5 penetration rate, as well as the arrival of peak seasonal demand, the decline in DRAM ASP will likely narrow. TrendForce does not rule out the possibility that DRAM ASP may even hold flat or undergo an increase in 2H22.

Micron, today announced that its high-performance 16Gb / 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory solution is now available with AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards built on the AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture. Using Micron's advanced 1z process technology, this latest version of GDDR6 enables up to 512 GB/s system performance for demanding applications like gaming and graphics. Today's announcement continues Micron's rich history of innovation and collaboration with industry leaders to deliver breakthrough performance that enables the most advanced gaming solutions.

As graphics and gaming applications become more demanding, so do the requirements for high bandwidth memory and system performance. Modern gamers expect high-resolution, immersive experiences, and GDDR6 delivers with its support of fast frame rates. The result is excellent performance and speed that minimize lag time and provide gamers with lifelike effects.

Micron, today announced the immediate availability of Micron Crucial DDR5 desktop PC memory products that deliver up to 50% faster data transfer speeds over previous-generation DDR4 memory, providing mainstream PC users with enthusiast-level performance. Whether a PC is used for business, learning, creativity, interactive entertainment or personal use, the computing experience is defined by performance, flexibility and efficiency. Micron's DDR5 memory technology advancements offer higher bandwidth per core, nearly doubling the effective memory bandwidth to provide multi-core CPUs with the data they need for multi-tasking and other demanding PC applications.

DDR5 allows for better power efficiency, decreasing operating voltage to 1.1 volts. Plus, its unique features enable future chip density to grow from today's 16 GB up to 24 GB, 32 GB and beyond, quadrupling the module density of DDR5 over DDR4 DRAM. This provides headroom and future scalability for DDR5-enabled systems. Improved bus efficiency results in higher effective bandwidth. By combining higher bandwidth, lower power and higher density, DDR5 enhances performance for emerging PC applications such as 4K and 8K content creation, interactive entertainment, personal and business productivity, and virtual reality experiences. By feeding hungry multi-core CPUs, DDR5 memory also helps make multitasking more efficient without bogging down system performance.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in standards development for the microelectronics industry, today announced publication of the JESD79-5A DDR5 SDRAM standard. This update to the JEDEC DDR5 SDRAM standard includes features designed to enhance reliability and performance in a wide range of applications involving client systems and high-performance servers. JESD79-5A is now available for download from the JEDEC website.

Added features designed to meet industry demand for improved system reliability include bounded fault error-correction support, Soft Post-Package Repair (sPPR) undo and lock, Memory Built-In Self-Test Post Package Repair (MBIST and mPPR), Adaptive RFM, and an MR4 extension. JESD79-5A expands the timing definition and transfer speed of DDR5 up to 6400 MT/s for DRAM core timings and 5600 MT/s for IO AC timings to enable the industry to build an ecosystem up to 5600 MT/s. The nomenclature for core timing parameters and their respective definitions has been revamped to closely align with the upcoming JEDEC JESD400-5 DDR5 Serial Presence Detect (SPD) Contents V1.0 standard. The document can be accessed here.

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), the only U.S.-based manufacturer of memory and one of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers, today announced that it intends to invest more than $150 billion globally over the next decade in leading-edge memory manufacturing and research and development (R&D), including potential U.S. fab expansion. Micron's investment will address increasing demand for memory that is essential to all computing.

Memory and storage are a growing portion of the global semiconductor industry, and today represent approximately 30% of the semiconductor market. Secular growth drivers like 5G and AI will expand usage of memory and storage across the data center and the intelligent edge, and in areas like automotive and a diversity of user devices.