Micron Plant Goes Offline for One Hour – Will DRAM Price Increase?

A manufacturing plant owned by Micro in Taiwan recently suffered a 1-hour power outage. This factory accounts for almost 10% of the world’s DRAM production capacity. Disruptions such as this could limit the industry’s supply and therefore drive up its price.

“Micron experienced a power outage at its DRAM fabrication facilities in Taoyuan, Taiwan, on Thursday, Dec. 3,” stated by the company. “Our emergency response procedures were implemented immediately, and all team members are safe. The power has been restored, and all the facility systems are operating normally.”  Although the impact of the blackout is still unknown, the company immediately activated its safety mechanisms and procedures to minimize losses. In numbers, we are talking about 125,000 wafers per month to bring DDR4 and LPDDR4 memory kits to life under a 10nm manufacturing process.

It should be noted that restarting production tools at a semiconductor fab takes a long time even if they are undamaged, which could and would direct affect DRAM output. The good news is that Micron believes that it’s Fab 11 can return to normal operation in a matter of days.

Proceeding the blackout, Micron’s shares increased by 2% due to the uncertainty of supply availability over the the next few months.

Samsung and SK Hynix Stand to Benefit from A Price Increase

The shortage in DRAM may cause prices to rise.  The blackout at Micron’s fabrication facility may now cause that price to further rise.  According to TrendForce, with Samsung and SK Hynix supplying less, the price rose 1% October to November.   And as of 10 am on Friday, KST, shares in SK Hynix rose compared to the day before. Samsung’s share price also rose by 3.3%. In the third quarter of 2020, Samsung has a market share of 41.3% in the worldwide DRAM market, followed by SK Hynix’s 28.2% and Micron’s 25%.

How will this impact your supply chain?  SiliconExpert has the data and expertise to help you identify:

• The affected products depend on Micron’s manufacturing plant
• Cross-reference replacement parts for affected parts

Contact SiliconExpert now for custom analysis.

For more details on this, please visit:

• https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20201204PD206.html
• https://www.tomshardware.com/news/micron-fab11-outage
• http://www.thelec.net/news/articleView.html?idxno=1970
• https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/power-went-out-for-1-hour-at-a-micron-memory-factory-will-dram-prices-go-up.html

December 10, 2020, Mahmoud Salem