The last cyclical upturn in DRAM contract prices began at the start of 2020 and was led by server DRAM, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. In 2Q20, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic shocked the global economy, but OEMs maintained or even stepped up procurement of components because they feared disruptions in the supply chain. As a result, DRAM suppliers' bit shipments surpassed expectations for the quarter, in turn widening the overall increase in DRAM ASP and raising the global DRAM revenue by 15.4% QoQ in 2Q20 to US$17.1 billion.

Nevertheless, TrendForce indicates that server OEMs are now carrying a rather high level of DRAM inventory after aggressively stocking up for two consecutive quarters. At the same time, customers of enterprise servers are holding back on procurement because the economic outlook is getting bleaker and more uncertain. Since server DRAM has the unique role of leading cyclical changes, this category is going to be first to experience price drop in the next downturn and thereby pull prices down for other types of DRAM products. As such, TrendForce forecasts at best a flattening of product shipments and decrease in DRAM prices in 3Q20, with DRAM suppliers suffering a decline in profitability.

Winbond Electronics Corporation, a leading global supplier of semiconductor memory solutions, today extended its record of leading the industry's innovation in specialty Flash memory with the introduction of a more flexible, high-speed read capability in its latest QspiNAND Flash products. Automotive and IoT device manufacturers are increasingly adopting high-performance Single-Level Cell (SLC) NAND Flash as a low-cost alternative at densities of 512 Mbits and higher to the NOR Flash traditionally used for code storage. Previous Winbond innovations in high-performance NAND Flash include the Quad SPI-NAND interface, which shares the same 6-pin signals and QSPI command set as Quad SPI-NOR, and the Continuous Read function, which achieves up to a 52 MB/s continuous data transfer rate at a 104 MHz clock frequency.

Panasonic, an electronics manufacturing giant, has today sold its silicon manufacturing business, marking the end of an era of Japanese semiconductor manufacturing. Once a big player in silicon manufacturing scene, particularly in the '80s and '90s era when Japan's silicon output was huge, Panasonic was considered one of the main players in the silicon manufacturing business. However, due to some difficulties like operating a business with a loss of over $215 million yearly, and having to compete with Chinese and Taiwanese silicon manufacturing firms, Panasonic is selling its silicon production lines.

The subsidiary of Panasonic called "Semiconductors Solutions" is being sold to Nuvoton Technology Corporation, a semiconductor company that spun-off from Winbond Electronics Corporation in 2008, where Winbond still owns 61% stake in Nuvoton despite the spinoff. Additionally, Panasonic forecasts a 27% drop in operating profit for this physical year, with the declining semiconductor manufacturing business counted. The reasoning behind this sale is that the company plans to exit all declining businesses that also include LCD manufacturing, as Chinese alternative manufacturers are stiff competition for Panasonic when it comes to pricing and panel output.

Winbond Electronics released a new line of serial peripheral interface flash (SPI Flash) memory chips designed to have tiny board footprints (sizes). 8-pin SPI Flash memory chips are in almost every part of today's computers, be it the chip that stores motherboard or VGA BIOS, the one that stores third-party controller firmware, or even boot ROM of network cards. Its applications get even broader with consumer electronics devices. Winbond launched new 8-pin SPI Flash chips in ultra-thin small-outline no-lead (USON) and wafer-level-ball-grid-array (WLBGA) form-factors, that have 20% smaller board footprints than common WSON and SOIC packages.

Winbond's new 6 mm² USON SPI Flash chips come in sizes of 512 Kb, 1 Mb, 2 Mb, 4 Mb, and 8 Mb, and with voltage options of common 2.5V and 3V. Low-power 1.8V options are available, too. The WLBGA SPIFlash chips will be available in 8 Mb and 16 Mb capacities, with package sizes of 3.4 mm² and 4.8 mm², respectively. Currently these chips are built on the more common 90 nm bulk manufacturing process, but Winbond expects to transition to 58 nm bulk process, driving down costs, in the future.

Elpida Memory, Inc., Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), today announced that it had completed development of a high-density, high-speed, low-power consumption 50nm process 2-gigabit GDDR5 using copper interconnects (product name: EDW2032BABG). The new GDDR5, the first graphics DRAM designed by Elpida, was developed at the company's Munich Design Center in Germany.

Applications for GDDR (GDDR: Graphics Double Data Rate) memory devices used with GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) are found not only in such graphic processing equipment as game consoles and PC graphics cards but also in equipment that require high-performance computing for use in such areas as science and technology, physical simulation, digital image processing and video conversion. Using 2-gigabit GDDR5 in these applications can double the frame buffer size of each GPU compared with 1-gigabit memory products.

Elpida Memory, Inc., Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), and Winbond Electronics Corp. today announced that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for DRAM foundry services that will see Winbond manufacture DRAMs under contract to Elpida. The outsourcing agreement is the first step of a business partnership the two companies intend to pursue further.

The agreement pertains to the supply of GDDR3 and GDDR5 graphic DRAMs for Elpida. Prior to this agreement Winbond and Elpida have been working together to commercialize GDDR3 and GDDR5 DRAM products. Winbond is preparing to begin commercial production of these products by the end of 2009 while Elpida plans to begin purchasing the output in the first half of 2010.