Power Outage at Samsung NAND Flash Plant Cuts March Global Output by 3.5%

[btarunr]

A power-outage on 9th March, at one of Samsung's NAND flash manufacturing plants located in Pyeongtaek, Korea, will have a notable impact on global NAND flash production. It reduced the global NAND flash output for the month of March 2018 by 3.5 percent, a number that isn't insignificant, and translates into non-volatile memory for millions of devices. It also trims Samsung's output by 11 percent for the month. SIlicon fabrication is a highly sensitive process, and the power-outage is said to have damaged up to 60,000 wafers of NAND flash chips.

The impact of this event on global prices of NAND flash memory, and devices based on it, remains to be seen. Any inflation could be nipped in the bud by Samsung and other NAND flash makers significantly increasing production through this quarter. Samsung will begin expansion of its NAND flash plant in Xi'an, China, which currently outputs 120,000 wafers per month, and is expected to put out 320,000 wafers a month after the expansion.



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[RejZoR]

They have to inflate prices somehow... Buy a bloody UPS for your factory Samsung...

 

[dj-electric]

Oh here we go again with these... Yeeeesh

 

[bubbleawsome]

Well that sucks

 

[evernessince]

They have to inflate prices somehow... Buy a bloody UPS for your factory Samsung...

You would think they would already have one given the loss incurred. I guess it's just easier to forgo it all together and jack up prices when it does happen.

 

[dicktracy]

Toilet flooded at the factory and RAM prices increase by 2x

 

[ShurikN]

When you run out of ideas on how to inflate prices...

 

[_JP_]

Ah, so the 860s were "cheap" to begin with...

 

[Chaitanya]

Toilet flooded at the factory and RAM prices increase by 2x

 

[Fabio]

Toilet flooded at the factory and RAM prices increase by 2x

da sh*t reached the wafer now they are all f*ckd up lol

 

[windwhirl]

"Oh hey, guess what: Our factory robots are going on strike. So we have to pay them more oil."

Jack up those prices until they reach the sky... Bastards

 

[Dave65]

Sources say no other factories in the area was affected when someone shut off the power @ Samsung, OH I mean when the outage took place:/

 

[LemmingOverlord]

It doesn't make sense that a factory does not have backup generators, in particular with the sensitive materials they work with. If this happened it is Samsung's fault. If it's Samsung's fault the cost should not be passed onto the consumer.

Fuck big business.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

FYI: In the third quarter of 2017, Samsung achieved a revenue of record-high 8.8 billion U.S. dollars from global DRAM sales with a current operating margin of 59% (SK Hynix's and Micron's operating margins are also impressive, at 54% and 44% respectively.)

Well, even if this incident is completely unintentional (though with any capitalist entity, the only thing I trust is their motivation for profit), the fact that Samsung (according to data from Q3 2017) accounts for over 45.8% of the global DRAM chip market [equal to SK Hynix and Micron combined) and 38% of the global NAND market (more than Toshiba and WD/Sandisk combined) means that they're actions, especially with respect to prices, production volume, and capital expenditure/investment, heavily influence the rest of the industry. This dynamic has been particularly heightened in the last several years following incorrect production forecasts affecting the entire industry and market in addition to China's exceptional determination to enter the market as a major competitor which have both resulted in the current situation characterized by offensively high prices for memory.

1. The relationship among the top three suppliers, Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung, changed after all three paid dearly for building up far too much production capacity based on strong memory prices in 2014. Based on the oligopolistic market situation, the trio opted for co-existence as the best way to maximize their own profitability. They turned away from aggressively competing for market share through price reduction and capacity expansion, and instead focused on maintaining profitability above all and avoiding actions that could result in decreasing their margins. There have been multiple memory market crashes throughout history and despite maintaining an average growth rate above 10% over the last 20 years, the industry experiences a higher than average degree of market volatility. Maintain their margins and therefore the signs of the companies' economic health was necessary especially considering China's desperation to get into the industry by any means, including acquiring an economically wounded company.
2. While maintaining profitability was the short term goal, the long term goal among the "Three Kings", Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron (which as of Q4 2017 account for 95.5% of the DRAM market) is to keep Chinese manufacturers out of the market for as long as possible. Luckily for us, the PC community, the desire to exclude China is probably our best hope of lowering memory prices, and here's why:
   • Following Micron's 63% plunge in stock prices in 2015, the Chinese State enterprise Tsinghua Unigroup made several offers to purchase Micron, and later, upon being rebuffed, tried to pitch a joint venture which went nowhere as well. This is due to the fact that while China has the capital to invest in production capacity, there is no way China can make technological inroads into the memory market without a joint venture or partnership.
     • For example, as of 2017 SMIC, China's largest indigenous foundry has been in business for about 15 years and are just starting to have significant production of 28-nm devices which places them about five generations behind TSMC with respect to technology. If after 15 years they can't compete with the foundry leaders because they lack the technological ability, it's probably not much different with respect to memory.
   • What's interesting is that as a result of China's failed attempts at buying or buying into leading semiconductor companies coupled with the fact that they've imported $221,578,000,000 worth of IC products annually for the past four years, China has put every effort into achieving self-sufficiency with NAND and DRAM manufacturing. In turn, this has influenced the "Three Kings" to refocus on increasing production volume:
     • Analysts estimate capital expenditures to grow 35 percent in 2018, reaching $90.8 billion industry wide. SK Hynix is now transitioning to the 18nm node and will be building its second fab in the Chinese city of Wuxi this year. Micron is expected to build new facilities as well, causing samsung to react accordingly.
     • While Samsung spent $11.3 billion in semiconductor capital expenditures last year they expect to double that figure this year to $26 billion with $14 billion earmarked for an enormous ramp-up in 3D NAND production and $7 billion for DRAM process migration and additional capacity to make up for capacity loss due to migration.
     • For DRAM, if Samsung follows through with its capacity expansion, the company’s output for 2018 will increase by 80,000 to 100,000 wafers. This means Samsung’s total DRAM production capacity would increase from 390,000 wafers per month at the end of 2017 to nearly 500,000 wafers per month by the end of 2018.

 

[Bones]

Toilet flooded at the factory and RAM prices increase by 2x

Just more BS to inflate the prices..... And I guess that's what they were trying to flush.
Need to take some of these excess profits and invest in some toilet plungers and train a few guys to use 'em.

 

[hat]

Following the 3.5% dip in global output, memory prices are expected to rise 350%...

 

[woopadidoo]

That theory that by rising prices the 3 kings cartel is going to keep the chinese behind is stupid. By rising prices all they're doing is creating a price window gap that allows the chinese to rise their own profits by supplying DRAM that consumers can actually afford for price/capacity&performance. Or i would hope to see it happen, this dram cartel and their manipulation practices have tripled or quadrupled the prices of what once was around 100$/€ into ~400 if the chinese supply the similar quality products back at ~100€, they got my money.