AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) today announced revenue for the second quarter of 2019 of $1.53 billion, operating income of $59 million, net income of $35 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.03. On a non-GAAP basis, operating income was $111 million, net income was $92 million and diluted earnings per share was $0.08.

"I am pleased with our financial performance and execution in the quarter as we ramped production of three leadership 7nm product families," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "We have reached a significant inflection point for the company as our new Ryzen, Radeon and EPYC processors form the most competitive product portfolio in our history and are well positioned to drive significant growth in the second half of the year."

Remember when we brought you coverage of Gigabyte's watercooling-built Z390 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce motherboard? At the time, we expected its design and feature set to place it some $100-$150 above the original Z390 Aorus Xtreme. Well, color us surprised, as it's being sold not at some $650-$700, but at a staggering $899 if you're lucky enough to live on the other side of the pond (speaking as a Portuguese man over here), or for an outrageous €1087 ($1247) here in my home country of Portugal. And I'm not even kidding.

Perhaps this is part of Gigabyte's push for higher profitability, via higher ASP (Average Selling Price) of its products in order to increase margins, especially on high-tier or halo products. Still, this pricing seems silly. We'll see if the market agrees with the valuation GIGABYTE is throwing behind its Z390 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce motherboard.

A DRAM market pricing watch report from DRAMeXchange, a division of Trendforce, has just outed a prediction for DRAM price drops towards 2019 and into the same year. The report points to already-decreased by 10.14% pricing (US$34.5 in 3Q18 to the current US$31) for 4GB PC DRAM modules in the market, relative to the previous quarter, as a sign for continued drops. 8 GB DRAM module pricing has declined by 10.29%, signaling an increased inventory of those parts.

The report also states that suppliers have just reached the inflection point for oversupply, despite continued efforts from manufacturers to artificially decrease manufacturing to keep a strain on demand. The report further states that "The ASP in the whole DRAM market is forecast to fall by as much as around 20% YoY in 2019, according to DRAMeXchange's latest analysis. After reaching peak profit in 3Q18, DRAM suppliers are now optimizing their costs so that they will have a soft landing in 2019 as prices are marked down every quarter."

As the mining craze seems to have hit a steaming wall alongside the current contraction in the crypto market (which has almost all cryptocurrencies redlining), Gigabyte is revising its graphics card shipment expectations for 2Q18. This isn't a sudden move, mind you: the "cryptocurrency mining accelerator market" has been slowing its ludicrous demand for some time now. However, Gigabyte expects the slowdown to continue and maybe even become steeper: a 20% reduction in its overall shipment expectations for 2Q18, from 1.2M units down to 1M, and a 10% reduction in ASP (Average Selling Price) do speak to this decline in demand. As a result of this expected decrease, Gigabyte will once again turn its marketing efforts towards gaming products and usage scenarios for their graphics cards, diverting funds that had been allocated to mining.

Don't worry though: Gigabyte is doing great. 1Q18 saw the company post record profits higher than the first half of 2017 - 1Q18 profits rose 91% sequentially and skyrocketed five-fold YoY to NT$1.61 billion (US$52.75 million). The company's revenue for graphics cards hit an all-time high of 49% per graphics card sold (a result of increased ASP). the company's motherboard business should see the same results as the previous year - a fault of Intel's increased delays in launching a new, compelling product line-up. Who would have thunk - Intel, the company that's always launching new platforms and chipsets and ending motherboard support for new CPUs.

DigiTimes, quoting industry sources, reports that NAND flash supply should see improvements from its 4Q17 state in 2018. This likely doesn't come as much of a surprise - 2017 has been a sort of "squeeze" year for NAND and DDR memory manufacturing, with companies increasing production without committing to fully satisfy demand, which in turn translates to longer term higher pricing of memory. Still, those tentative increases to production capabilities should begin to release the memory pricing squeeze during 1Q18, with ASP (average selling price) coming down.

The increase in production and supply doesn't come solely from factory floor expansions, however; there's also been reports of increased yields of 3D NAND fabrication technologies, which should also increase availability in the best way possible for manufacturers.

Silicon wafers are definitely the best kind of wafers for us tech enthusiasts, but as we all know, required financial resources for the development and production of these is among the most intensive in development costs and R&D. It's not just about the cost of employing enough (and crucially, good enough) engineers that can employ the right tools and knowledge to design the processing miracles that are etched onto wafers; there's also the cost of good, old production as well. Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography Systems that are used for the production of silicon wafers are about the size of a city bus, and typically cost more than 100 million euros ($115.3 million) each. ASML, a Dutch company that specializes in this kind of equipment, announced this year it was expecting to see a 25% revenue growth for 2017. Increased demand for these systems - and added cost of development of ever increasingly small and complex etchings in wafers - means this sector is seeing strong growth. But where there is strong growth, there is usually high demand, and high demand means higher strain on supply, which may sometimes not be able to keep up with the market's needs.

This is seemingly the case for wafer pricing; as demand for wafer production has been increasing, so to are prices. Faced with increased demand, companies are usually faced with a tough question to answer in regards to the correct course of action. Usually, it goes like this: higher demand at the same supply level means higher pricing. However, if supply isn't enough to satisfy demand, manufacturers are losing out on potential increased sales. This leads most companies to increase supply relative to demand, but always with lower projected output than demand requires, so they can bask in both increased ASP (Average Sale Price) and higher number of sales. This has been the case with DRAM memory production for some time now: and is happening with 300 mm silicon wafers as well.