With a forecast that the market for double data rate (DDR) 2 SD-RAMs will begin to take off in the first half of next year, major DRAM fabricators at home and overseas are spurring to augment their commercial production capabilities.
Industry sources said on October 1 that Samsung Electronics and Hynix Semiconductor in Korea, Nanya Technology in Taiwan, and Japan`s Elpida Memory are expediting the expansion of their processing lines and commercialization of products as Intel is set to roll out a new PC chipset Grantsdale in the first half of 2004 and the proportion of DDR 2 SD-RAMs in the DRAM market is seen to increase rapidly after next year.
Market survey institutions and the industry predict that ratio of DDR2 SD-RAMs in DRAM market will rise to 10.5% next year, 45% in 2005, and to 75% in 2006.
Samsung Electronics, which initiated in March commercial production of 512MB DDR2 SD-RAMs used for PCs and servers, recently rolled out 256MB DDR2 chips to be used for graphic cards.
With an optimistic perspective that DDR2 SD-RAMs will account for more than 10% of the total DRAM market next year, the company is studying ways of moving up the timing for investment in 300mm wafer facilities to produce DDR2 products in 0.11㎛ processing lines.
Having developed 1GB DDR2 SD-RAM ahead of Samsung, Hynix Semiconductor intends to receive certification from Intel for its performance and stability. Also, Hynix plans to upgrade its DRAM fabrication lines in Ichon and Cheongju plants to 0.11㎛ facilities, investing some 750 billion won (approximately 650 million dollars) by the year`s end.
Aiming to become a top player in DDR2 chip market, Taiwan`s Nanya Technology plans to push up the proportion of DDR2 SD-RAMs to 85% of its DRAM production toward the end of next year. To build 0.11㎛ processing facilities for DDR2 chips, Nanya will spend 300 million dollars.
In addition to these, Elpida Memory in Japan, German-based Infinion Technology, Taiwan`s Power Chip Semiconductor, and Micron Technology in the United States are gearing up development of related technologies and installation of fabrication lines.