Metrics 2.0: $30B DRAM market revives, NAND to reach DRAM levels, SRAM declining

The DRAM revenues in 2005 totaled $25 billion and are expected to grow to $32 billion by 2010, according to iSuppli. Market revenue for standalone SRAM were $2.7 billion in 2005, and will decline at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of negative 7% to $1.9 billion in 2010.

DRAM and SRAM Market Forecast - Revenue in Billions of U.S. Dollars)
	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	CAGR ('05-'10)
DRAM	$24.8	$30.6	$36.0	$38.6	$30.7	$32.3	5.4%
SRAM	$2.8	$2.9	$2.6	$2.4	$2.2	$1.9	-7.0%
Source: iSuppli Corp. October 2006

Total capital expenditure by global DRAM makers, including Samsung, U.S.-based Micron Technology, and the No.3 Hynix would rise 20.6% in 2006 to $15.2 billion and another 6.1% in 2007, according to Citigroup.

Global NAND revenue is currently about a third of DRAM's, but in 3-5 years, the global NAND market could grow to the level of DRAM's.In the April-June quarter, Hynix ranked third in DRAM sales behind Samsung Electronics and Germany's Qimonda. It was also the third-largest NAND maker, trailing Samsung and Toshiba Corp. of Japan.

DRAM, with its many derivatives, is a key semiconductor component as the main memory in PCs and other systems. DRAM today comes in densities ranging from 512Mbits to 1Gbit. The memory is surpassed in density within computers by only the hard disk drive, which comes in densities of 80Gbyte and 160Gbyte in notebook and desktop PCs respectively. SRAM, on the other hand, is a memory technology in decline as a standalone part—although its functionality remains in high demand when integrated on other types of semiconductors.

The primary reason for the decline in the standalone SRAM market is the increasing level of semiconductor integration. SRAM, which can perform very fast reads and writes, at one time was used extensively as a standalone device, closely coupled to the computer microprocessor.

Business & Market Intelligence

$30B DRAM market revives, NAND to reach DRAM levels, SRAM declining