In the volatile memory market, static RAM (SRAM) is proving to be a good bet for manufacturers looking for a high margin, low risk commodity. SRAM is commonly used in the mobile communications market. The term static is derived from the fact that it doesn’t need to be refreshed like dynamic RAM; however, it is more expensive to produce. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the SRAM market leader with a 20% share, says that it sold $749m worth of the chips in 1998. Other companies in the SRAM market include NEC, IBM and Toshiba. The market is expected to be worth $6bn by 2001.
