According to data from Gartner, the semiconductor market is expected to decline by up to 3.6 percent in 2023, from a growth of 4 percent this year and 26.3 percent in 2021. This might not be surprising to those that have followed recent developments in the semiconductor market, but it also looks like revenue for 2023 will be closer to that of 2021. This might in part be related to higher costs of manufacturing, but consumer demand is expected to be down in 2023, largely due to less disposable income, related to the current situation with rising inflation and increasing costs elsewhere.

Gartner claims that the enterprise market has been relatively stable and the consulting firm isn't expecting the enterprise market to decline as much as the consumer market when it comes to semiconductor demand. That said, Gartner is expecting the memory market to decline by up to 16.2 percent in 2023, as there's already an oversupply in the market. Likewise, it expects that the NAND flash market will see a decline by up to 13.7 percent in 2023. What isn't clear is how this weaker demand will affect retail prices, but as we've already seen, the DRAM and NAND flash manufacturers have already hit the brakes, to try and prevent a price crash.

Market intelligence firm TrendForce reports that the whole NAND Flash market was severely weakened by plummeting demand in 3Q22. Because shipments of end products including consumer electronics and servers had been below expectations, the overall NAND ASP fell by 18.3% QoQ. Furthermore, the general economic outlook remained pessimistic, so enterprises across many sectors started to scale back their capital expenditure plans and halted the momentum of their procurement activities. Due to this development, the problem of excess inventory eventually spread to NAND Flash suppliers. The pressure on suppliers to make sales was ratcheted up dramatically. According to TrendForce's investigation, NAND Flash bit shipments fell by 6.7% QoQ for 3Q22, and the overall NAND Flash ASP also kept sliding. On account of the unfavorable market situation, the NAND Flash industry recorded a total revenue of around US$13.71 billion for 3Q22. The QoQ revenue decline reached as much as 24.3%.

The ranking of NAND Flash suppliers by revenue saw two notable changes for 3Q22. First, SK Group moved down to third place as it suffered the largest revenue drop among suppliers. Its revenue slipped by 29.8% QoQ to US$2.54 billion mainly due to the significant deterioration of the demand for PCs and smartphones. Its subsidiary Solidigm was also affected by the slowdown in server procurements. Previously, servers had a fairly stable demand situation compared with other kinds of end products. However, server demand eventually buckled in 3Q22 as result of enterprises cutting capital expenditure and undergoing a period of inventory correction. Compared with 2Q22, SK Group (that encompasses SK hynix and Solidigm) posted a drop of 11.1% in bit shipments and an even steeper decline of more than 20% in ASP.

KLEVV, an emerging memory brand introduced by Essencore, is excited to announce three new consumer-grade M.2 NVMe SSDs, the CRAS C930, C910, and C730. The new CRAS M.2 NVMe SSD lineup aims to serve a wide range of users, enabling entry-level to top-tier enthusiasts with industry-leading storage technology. Both CRAS 930 and C910 come with an optional add-on heatsink for users to maximize their freedom in the setup.

With an impressive 1500 TBW endurance lifecycle and a significant emphasis on DRAM cache buffer, the CRAS C930 is built to withstand harsh workloads. Utilizing the latest PCIe Gen4 x4 interface supported by NVMe 1.4, it delivers break-neck sequential read/write speed of up to 7400/6800 MB/s at 2 TB max capacity and 4K random read/write up to 1000K IOPS. Exceptional engineering and design elements make the CRAS C930 the crown jewel of KLEVV's new M.2 NVMe SSD lineup, capable of running on PCs, Laptops, and even PS5 consoles. Additionally, the flat fin heatsink addon is a great inclusion with up to 20% temperature reduction, giving users complete flexibility in their choice.

Based on the latest data and research, TrendForce has further corrected down the projected YoY growth rate of whole server shipments for 2023 to 2.8%. Three factors are behind this revision. First, lead time has started to return to its usual length for most orders related to server components from 3Q23 onward. Seeing this, server OEMs and cloud service providers (CSPs) have also begun to correct the component mismatch issue by lowering demand for items that are in excess while maintaining a constant inventory level for items that are still in tight supply. This development, in turn, has reduced the flow of server orders going to ODMs. Second, the wave of demand that was generated earlier from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is dissipating. Hence, expansion activities have cooled off noticeably for services such as video streaming, e-commerce, etc. Among CSPs, Meta, Google, and ByteDance (TikTok) have lowered their server procurement quantities for next year. Lastly, the global economic outlook has remained fairly negative, so companies across most industry sectors have formulated a more conservative expenditure plan and scaled back IT-related spending for next year.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced that in response to market conditions, the company is reducing DRAM and NAND wafer starts by approximately 20% versus fiscal fourth quarter 2022. These reductions will be made across all technology nodes where Micron has meaningful output. Micron is also working toward additional capex cuts. In calendar 2023, Micron now expects its year-on-year bit supply growth to be negative for DRAM, and in the single-digit percentage range for NAND.

Recently, the market outlook for calendar 2023 has weakened. In order to significantly improve total inventory in the supply chain, Micron believes that in calendar 2023, year-on-year DRAM bit supply will need to shrink and NAND bit supply growth will need to be significantly lower than previous estimates. "Micron is taking bold and aggressive steps to reduce bit supply growth to limit the size of our inventory. We will continue to monitor industry conditions and make further adjustments as needed," said Micron President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra. "Despite the near-term cyclical challenges, we remain confident in the secular demand drivers for our markets, and in the long term, expect memory and storage revenue growth to outpace that of the rest of the semiconductor industry."

Global market intelligence firm TrendForce reports that for 3Q22, the revenue of the whole DRAM industry dropped by 28.9% QoQ to US$18.19 billion. This decline is the second largest to the one that the industry experienced in 2008, when the global economy was rocked by a major financial crisis. Regarding the state of the DRAM market in 3Q22, the QoQ decline in contract prices widened to the range of 10~15% as the demand for consumer electronics continued to shrink. Server DRAM shipments, which had been on a relatively stable trend compared with shipments of other types of DRAM products, also slowed down noticeably from the previous quarter as buyers began adjusting their inventory levels.

Turning to individual DRAM suppliers' performances in 3Q22, the top three suppliers (i.e., Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron) all exhibited a QoQ drop in revenue. Samsung posted US$7.40 billion and a QoQ drop of 33.5%, which was the largest among the top three. SK hynix's revenue fell by 25.2% QoQ to around US$5.24 billion. As for Micron, its revenue came to around US$4.81 billion. Since Micron marks its fiscal quarters differently, its DRAM ASP showed a QoQ decline that was smaller than the ones suffered by the two Korean suppliers. And as a result of this, Micron's QoQ revenue decline was also the smallest among the top three. TrendForce points out that the top three are still maintaining a relatively high operating margin at this moment. Nevertheless, the inventory correction period that has started this year will last through the first half of next year, so they will experience a continuing squeeze on profit.

SK hynix has developed LPDDR5X (Low Power Double Data Rate 5X), the world's first-ever mobile DRAM with an integrated HKMG (High-K Metal Gate) process, which was just recently introduced to the market. The LPDDR5X boasts the industry's highest energy-efficiency as SK hynix succeeded in reducing power consumption by 25% compared to the previous generation and operates in the ultra-low voltage range of 1.01 V to 1.12 V set by the JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council).
For the LPDDR, which is also called a mobile DRAM, having a low power consumption is its greatest asset, just as its standard name—LP (Low Power)—suggests. As power is limited in mobile devices, it's necessary to reduce power consumption as much as possible to extend the usage time.

This is why lowering power consumption is just as important as increasing operating speed. LPDDR5X was the first among mobile DRAMs to integrate the HKMG process and see improved performance and a reduction in power consumption, essentially killing two birds with one stone. As the power consumption of DRAM gets lowered by LPDDR5X, mobile devices can be used for a longer time with a single charge. The reduction in power consumption of such products can subsequently lead to a reduction in the power used by consumers, which is in line with the value of SK hynix's ESG-centered business management.

Eliyan Corporation, credited for the invention of the semiconductor industry's highest-performance and most efficient chiplet interconnect, today announced two major milestones in the commercialization of its technology for multi-die chiplet integration: the close of its Series A $40M funding round, and the successful tapeout of its technology on an industry standard 5-nanometer (nm) process.

Eliyan's NuLink PHY and NuGear technologies address the critical need for a commercially viable approach to enabling high performance and cost-effectiveness in the connection of homogeneous and heterogenous architectures on a standard, organic chip substrate. It has proven to achieve similar bandwidth, power efficiency, and latency as die-to-die implementations using advanced packaging technologies, but without the other drawbacks of specialized approaches.

Acer is bidding to buy 11 million equity shares of Apacer, a major DRAM and NAND flash products manufacturer. The shares, valued at NTD 363 million, will make the Taiwanese prebuilt PC and notebooks giant an 8.97% shareholder of Apacer's stock. The announcement put out by Apacer also speaks of an enhancement of "strategic collaborations" between the two companies. This could only mean one thing—that Apacer becomes a supplier of DRAM and NAND flash products to Acer.

Acer sells a small but significant lineup of SSDs and PC memory products in the DIY retail channel. These products are sourced from BIWIN, an OEM of DRAM and NAND flash products. Will Apacer replace BIWIN as a supplier? We'll have to wait and see. Besides an OEM, Apacer sells its own-branded memory cards, USB flash drives, SSDs, and PC memory modules; besides holding the PC enthusiast brand ZADAK, which sells high-end SSDs and overclocking memory modules.

SMART Modular Technologies, Inc. ("SMART"), a division of SGH and a global leader in memory solutions, solid-state drives and hybrid storage products today announced the addition of new DDR5 16 GB and 32 GB Very Low Profile Error-Correction Code Unbuffered Dual In-Line Memory Modules (VLP ECC UDIMM) to its lineup of blade memory VLP module products.

SMART's new DuraMemory DDR5 VLP ECC UDIMMs are designed for 1U blade servers and blade enclosure systems used in networking, telecom, compute and storage applications that are optimized to minimize space and power. DDR5 VLP ECC UDIMMs are designed to meet height, density, power, and performance specifications needed to enable the next generation of memory applications.

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading brand of performance overclock memory and PC components, is thrilled to showcase extreme memory bandwidth performance of high-frequency DDR5-8000 32 GB (16 GB x2) & DDR5-7800 32 GB (2x 16 GB) overclocked memory kits on the latest Intel Core i9-13900K Processor and ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 APEX motherboard. Working in close partnership with the ASUS motherboard team, a single G.SKILL memory module was overclocked to a staggering DDR5-10000 under air cooling.

Dedicated to developing the fastest possible DDR5 memory on the latest 13th Gen Intel Core processor and Intel Z790 chipset, G.SKILL showcases the high memory bandwidth performance of DDR5-8000 32 GB (2x16GB) memory kit on the ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 APEX motherboard. The following screenshots show the DDR5-8000 CL40 32 GB (2x16GB) and DDR5-7800 CL38 32 GB (2x 16 GB) memory kits validated on an Intel Core i9-13900K processor and ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 APEX motherboard (BIOS 0702) platform, with the DDR5-8000 CL40 32 GB (2x16GB) memory kit reaching memory bandwidth read speed of over 124 GB/s and write speed of over 120 GB/s on the AIDA64 memory benchmark.

Micron Technology, Inc., announced today that it is shipping qualification samples of its 1β (1-beta) DRAM technology to select smartphone manufacturers and chipset partners and has achieved mass production readiness with the world's most advanced DRAM technology node. The company is debuting its next generation of process technology on its low-power double data rate 5X (LPDDR5X) mobile memory, delivering top speed grades of 8.5 gigabits (Gb) per second. The node delivers significant gains across performance, bit density and power efficiency that will have sweeping market benefits. Beyond mobile, 1β delivers the low-latency, low-power, high-performance DRAM that is essential to support highly responsive applications, real-time services, personalization and contextualization of experiences, from intelligent vehicles to data centers.

The world's most advanced DRAM process node, 1β represents an advancement of the company's market leadership cemented with the volume shipment of 1α (1-alpha) in 2021. The node delivers around a 15% power efficiency improvement and more than a 35% bit density improvement with a 16Gb per die capacity. "The launch of our 1-beta DRAM signals yet another leap forward for memory innovation, brought to life by our proprietary multi-patterning lithography in combination with leading-edge process technology and advanced materials capabilities," said Scott DeBoer, executive vice president of technology and products at Micron. "In delivering the world's most advanced DRAM technology with more bits per memory wafer than ever before, this node lays the foundation to usher in a new generation of data-rich, intelligent and energy-efficient technologies from the edge to the cloud."

Transcend, a leading brand in digital storage and multimedia products, has officially launched the advanced PCIe 4.0 M.2 solid-state drive (SSD) MTE250S. Featuring 3D NAND flash, an 8-channel controller, and DRAM cache, this SSD delivers sequential read and write speeds of up to 7200/6500 MB/s (R/W) and ample capacity of up to 2 TB. Its ultra-thin graphene heatsink ensures stable performance during non-stop operation, and its proven performance will bring gamers, content creators, and software developers a fundamental boost, helping them excel in their fields.

Fully compliant with the latest NVMe 1.4 specifications, MTE250S comes in an M.2 2280 form factor with an 8-channel controller and a fast PCIe Gen4 x4 interface, unleashing sequential R/W speeds of up to 7200/6500 MB/s and 4K random R/W speeds reaching 530K IOPS. Video editors and gamers alike will benefit from its impressive speeds, reduced downtime, and ample capacity of up to 2 TB, all of which are necessary for tackling the most demanding tasks.

SK hynix Inc. reported today revenues of 10.98 trillion won, operating profit of 1.66 trillion won (with OP margin of 15%), and net income of 1.1 trillion won (with net income margin 10%) in the third quarter of 2022. Sales and operating profits decreased 20.5%, 60.5% respectively QoQ. SK hynix analyzed that revenues fell QoQ as both sales volume and price decreased due to sluggish demand for DRAM and NAND products amid worsening macroeconomic environment worldwide. In addition, SK hynix explained that despite the company improved cost competitiveness by increasing the sales proportion and yield of the latest 1anm DRAM and 176-layer 4D NAND, operating profit also decreased due to greater price drop than cost reduction.

SK hynix diagnosed that the semiconductor memory industry is facing an unprecedented deterioration in market conditions as uncertainties in the business environment continued. The deterioration occurred as the shipments of PCs and smartphone manufacturers, which are major buyers of memory chips, have decreased.

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading brand of performance overclock memory and PC components, is excited to announce new extreme overclocked performance DDR5 DRAM specifications up to DDR5-7800 under the Trident Z5 family. Designed for use with the latest 13th Gen Intel Core desktop processor and Intel Z790 chipset platform, these new flagship specifications mark a new era of DDR5 performance.

Pushing the memory performance to the limits of the latest 13th Gen Intel Core desktop processor and Intel Z790 chipset platform, G.SKILL is announcing new DDR5 memory specifications up to a blazing speed of DDR5-7800 at CL38 with 32 GB (2x 16 GB) kit capacity, under the flagship Trident Z5 family. Refer to the screenshot below to see the DDR5-7800 memory kit validated on the Intel Core i9-13900K desktop processor and ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Apex motherboard.

According to the latest TrendForce research, pandemic-induced materials shortages abated in the second half of this year and the supply and delivery of short-term materials has recovered significantly. However, assuming materials supply is secure and demand can be met, the annual growth rate of server shipments in 2023 is estimated to be only 3.7%, which is lower than 5.1% in 2022.

TrendForce indicates that this growth slowdown is due to three factors. First, once material mismatch issues had eased, buyers began adjusting previously placed purchase order overruns. Thus, ODM orders also decreased but this will not affect the 2022 shipment volume of whole servers for the time being. Second, due to the impact of rising inflation and weakness in the overall economy, corporate capital investment may trend more conservative and IT-related investment will emphasize flexibility, such as the replacement of certain server terminals with cloud services. Third, geopolitical changes will drive the continuing emergence of demand for small-scale data centers and previous construction of hyperscale data centers will slow. The recent ban on military/HPC servers issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce on October 7 has a very low market share in terms of its application category, so the impact on the overall server market is limited at present. However, if the scope of the ban is expanded further in the future, it will herald a more significant slowdown risk for China's server shipment momentum in 2023.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that its latest LPDDR5X DRAM with the industry's fastest speed of 8.5 gigabits per second (Gbps) was validated for use on Snapdragon mobile platforms. By optimizing a high-speed signal environment between application processor and memory, Samsung has surpassed the previous maximum speed of 7.5 Gbps achieved in March, reaffirming its leadership in the memory market.

As a global leader in the mobile DRAM market for more than a decade, Samsung has been driving mainstream adoption of high-end smartphones, enabling many more consumers to experience powerful computing performance on their mobile devices. Thanks to its low-power and high-performance characteristics, LPDDR DRAM is quickly becoming pervasive in modern computing systems, expanding beyond smartphones and into PCs, high-performance computing (HPC), servers and automobiles, where it has enjoyed robust growth in the last few years.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that the U.S. government has clarified its position with respect to its latest export control regulations, issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) on Friday, October 7, 2022. In an official letter from BIS, the agency assured SK hynix that the company, as well as its current suppliers and business partners, is still authorized to engage in activities necessary to maintain current production of integrated circuits in China for one year without further licensing requirements.

"Our discussions with the Department of Commerce led to an approval to supply equipment and items needed for development and production of DRAM semiconductors in Chinese facilities without additional licensing requirements," the company said. The new rules require a license for export, re-export or transfer (in-country) to China items including manufacturing equipment and support for DRAM chips 18 nm and below, NAND chips with 128 layers or more and logic chips 14 nm and below.

Micron Technology, Inc., one of the world's largest semiconductor companies and the only U.S.-based manufacturer of memory, today announced plans to build the largest semiconductor fabrication facility in the history of the United States. The new megafab will increase domestic supply of leading-edge memory and create nearly 50,000 New York jobs, including approximately 9,000 high paying Micron jobs.

Micron intends to invest up to $100 billion over the next 20-plus years to construct a new megafab in Clay, New York, with the first phase investment of $20 billion planned by the end of this decade. This represents the largest private investment in New York state history. Micron's investment in Onondaga County, New York, will complement the company's previously announced high-volume manufacturing fab in Boise, Idaho. Micron will design, build and operate the facility in accordance with its sustainability goals. The site could eventually include four 600,000 square foot cleanrooms, for a total of 2.4 million square feet of cleanroom space - the size of approximately 40 U.S. football fields.

According to a TrendForce investigations, memory pricing began to decline from 4Q21 due to weakening demand for certain consumer electronics. Coupled with the impact of rising inflation, the Russian-Ukrainian war, and pandemic policies, demand in peak season was weak, resulting in inventory pressure that has extended from the buyer side to manufacturers. In response to the aforementioned situation, Micron announced last week that it would cut production of DRAM and NAND Flash, becoming the first major memory manufacturer to officially reduce its capacity utilization plan. In terms of NAND Flash, the market situation is more severe than that of DRAM. As the average contract price of mainstream capacity wafers has fallen to their cash cost and is approaching the periphery of selling at a loss for various manufacturers, Kioxia also announced that it will reduce NAND Flash capacity utilization by 30% from October on the heels of Micron's announcement.

In terms of DRAM, current contract pricing remains higher than the total production cost of various mainstream suppliers. Therefore, compared with NAND Flash, it remains to be seen whether there will be a significant reduction in production. In addition to mentioning the slight reduction in capacity utilization in this sector currently, Micron mainly emphasized its sharp downward revision of capital expenditures in 2023 and that the annual growth of DRAM production bits next year will only be around 5%. TrendForce believes, according to Micron, to actualize such conservative bit growth means that there is still room for a significant downward revision in capacity utilization and the extent to which Micron's subsequent production reductions are implemented remains to be seen.

According to TrendForce research, rising inflation has weakened demand for consumer products, flattening the peak of peak season. In 3Q22, memory bit consumption and shipments continued to exhibit quarterly decline. Due to a significant decline in memory demand, terminal buyers also delayed purchases, leading to further escalation of supplier inventory pressure. At the same time, the strategies of various DRAM suppliers to increase their market share remain unchanged. There have been cases of "consolidated Q3/Q4 price negotiations" or "negotiating quantity before pricing" in the market, which are the reasons leading to a ballooning of declining DRAM prices to 13~18% in 4Q22.

In terms of PC DRAM, due to weak demand for notebooks, PC OEMs will remain focused on destocking DRAM inventory. While the DRAM supply side has not actually reduced production since operating profit remains favorable, bit output continues to rise and pressure on suppliers' inventory becomes increasingly obvious. From the perspective of DDR4 and DDR5, the price drop forecast in 4Q22 is 13~18% with DDR5 declining more than DDR4. However, as the penetration rate of DDR5 continues to rise, coupled with a higher unit price, the penetration rate of DDR5 in the PC DRAM sector will increase 13~15% in 4Q22, which will buoy the average unit price of overall PC DRAM (combined DDR5 and DDR4) marginally and PC DRAM pricing in 4Q22 is estimated to drop by approximately 10~15%.

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading brand of performance overclock memory and PC components, is excited to announce two new extreme overclocked performance DDR5 memory specifications to its flagship Trident Z5 RGB series: DDR5-6800 CL32-45-45-108 32 GB (2x 16 GB) and DDR5-6400 CL32-39-39-102 64 GB (2x 32 GB). These memory kits come with Intel XMP 3.0 memory overclocking profiles and have been validated on the latest 12th Gen Intel Core desktop processor and Intel Z690 chipset platform.

Dedicated to developing extreme overclock speed memory kits, the G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB DDR5-6800 CL32-45-45-108 2x 16 GB memory kit is the ideal choice for overclocking enthusiasts to experience extreme DDR5 frequency performance. The screenshot below shows the DDR5-6800 memory kit validated with Intel Core i7-12700K desktop processor and ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboard.

Kingston FURY, the gaming division of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, announced today it has unleashed a new member of the pack, Kingston FURY Beast DDR4 RGB Special Edition. The white heatspreader with striking RGB lighting makes these modules unique amongst the Kingston FURY line.

Enhance not just the performance of your system but keep it fresh with the library of preset RGB lighting patterns and effects or personalize the settings to create a look that makes your system truly one of a kind with Kingston FURY CTRL software. Along with the patented Infrared Sync Technology, trust your tailored RGB effects stay aligned.

Kingston FURY, the gaming division of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, announced today the addition of AMD EXPO certified DDR5 modules to the Kingston FURY Beast line of memory. Always aiming to provide the latest options to gamers and enthusiasts, these new overclock specs modules and kits are optimized for AMD's upcoming AM5 platform with two factory tuned profiles, plus one user customizable profile.

Qualified by the world's leading motherboard manufacturers, the Kingston FURY Beast line offers aggressive speeds up to 6000MT/s1 with a bold low-profile heatspreader design. Now with AMD EXtended Profile for Overclocking, users can trust that their selected Kingston FURY Beast DDR5 modules and kits are exactly what their AMD AM5 system needs to maximize performance, while also maintaining stability.

Goldkey Technology Corporation (TPEx : 3135), aka "Neo Forza", offers products and solutions marketed under the label Neo Forza successfully completed qualification of its server modules with Dell PowerEdge R650 and R750 series servers, which DELL loaned to Neo Forza. Following successful qualification, Neo Forza announces commercial and industrial channel partner availability of Neo Forza DDR4 RDIMM server memory in adherence to industry qualifications, ranging from DDR4 2133MT/s to 3200MT/s.

"Data center staff need to maximize platform performance and extend platform longevity. Neo Forza's qualified DDR4 server memory assures these factors are met cost-effectively," said Jess Kung, vice president of sales. "Goldkey Technology Corporation has been on the forefront of the memory industry and is an integrated-circuit (I/C) specialist with technical acumen of more than 15 years. The successful qualification program amplifies our intrinsic value to our global customers."