Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips for use in PCs will see a compounded annual growth rate of 21.9% through 2002, according to Akira Minamikawa, component semiconductor director of market research company IDC Japan Ltd. He said this compared to an expected rate of 7.1% on average for all types of microchips.
Speaking at a briefing organized by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) Japan, a worldwide organization of semiconductor equipment manufacturing companies, he said chip demand for PCs will see a $35bn market this year grow to a $50bn market in 2002. DRAMs will achieve by far the highest growth, with demand for core logic chips only growing at a compounded rate of 3.9% while microprocessors will only see a modest 1.8% growth he said.
Although PC shipments in unit terms will continue to expand at a brisk pace, sales of microprocessors in value terms will increase slowly because of price reductions, he said. But in the meantime people will be buying computers with enhanced memory capacities. DRAM chips only account for about 6% of the total
price of a PC, Minamikawa said, leaving plenty of scope for growth in value terms. He said today’s typical PC has about 90MB DRAM but this will expand more than tenfold to 1GB by 2006.
