By Lisa Wang / Staff reporter
Price hikes of server DRAM chips are expected to moderate to 13 percent to 18 percent sequentially this quarter as US cloud service providers (CSPs) have locked down capacity through early long-term supply agreements, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. Contract prices for server DRAM chips skyrocketed by 53 percent to 58 percent in the second quarter, the Taipei-based researcher said in a report. The price hikes in the third quarter will mainly come from customers that did not sign long-term agreements or price adjustments from new orders not covered by those agreements, TrendForce said.
A Samsung Electronics Co memory module is displayed at a shareholders’ meeting in Suwon, South Korea, on March 18.
“We expect contract server DRAM prices to climb in a narrower range each quarter from the second half of this year to the second half of next year,” it said. The uptrend trajectory remains unchanged as supply scarcity is expected to continue for some time, it said.
With the supply of central processing units (CPUs) projected to catch up in the second half of this year and next year, server production is expected to scale up again, which would reinforce a short supply of DRAM chips, TrendForce said. As a result, CSPs are likely to seek more DRAM chip supply next year, it said. The supply of registered dual in-line memory modules (RDIMM), a type of computer memory module used primarily in general-purpose servers and high-end workstations, would rise 15 percent to 20 percent annually next year, significantly falling behind the supply growth in server CPUs, TrendForce said. That could lead to a short supply of RDIMM next year, it said. The blended average selling prices of high-bandwidth memory chips used in artificial intelligence servers are to gain 8 percent to 13 percent this quarter, compared with a rise of up to 58 percent last quarter, it said.
