First-tier notebook vendors pushing 4GB products next year to lift DRAM market

While first-tier notebook vendors such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Toshiba are planning to roll out 4GB notebooks starting from the first quarter of 2008, the move is expected to give a boost to the DRAM market, according to memory module makers.

The mainstream specification for notebooks is 1GB in the market at present.

Quotes for 1GB DRAM modules have fallen to US$16 in the second half of December while prices for two 2GB modules are likely to drop to less than US$60 in the first quarter of 2008. Based on this scenario, the cost for 4GB RAM will account for less than 6% of a US$1,000-cost notebook. This is much lower than the 10% of the overall system cost as seen in the past, memory makers added.

With the price for two 2GB DRAM modules at such a reasonable range, most notebook vendors should be willing to adopt the specification.

A 4GB notebook will need 32 1Gb DRAM chips compared to only eight for a 1GB notebook, Taiwan DRAM makers pointed out. With demand coming from new notebooks launches, the DRAM market may not see a serious oversupply in 2008 as in 2007, industry sources predicted.

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