DRAM Prices Expected to Increase Due to Power Outage at Micron Plant

[Tsing]

Image: Micron



Don’t be surprised if RAM prices go up next year. As reported by Taiwan’s TechNews (via Tom’s Hardware), memory giant Micron suffered a one-hour power outage at one of its DDR4 and LPDDR4 fabrication plants on Thursday, which obviously hindered production to some degree. While the company is still busy inspecting the exact level of losses, critics believe that the incident will lead to increased memory prices for 2021.



“[…] the factory’s monthly production capacity is 125K a month, accounting for 8.8% of the global total monthly DRAM production capacity of 1,418K,” TechNews noted. “The loss of power outage without warning this time may affect DRAM market conditions.”



“Micron confirmed that a power outage...

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[hubaduba]

Well, isn't that conveeeeenient!

 

[Eduardo_Domingot]

Every time I go to buy RAM...I swear my timing couldn't be worse.

 

[MadMummy76]

I should really work in an industry where turning off the power for one hour equals more profits for the next 6 months.

 

[Paul_Johnson]

Ok, who had "power outage" in the pool? Stupid me went with "flood".

 

[Brian_B]

I had typhoon and wild dingo attack

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

I had a government uprising followed by a global pandemic breaking supply chains. Silly me. That'll teach me to focus on specifics.

 

[Space_Ranger]

I forgot to get into the pool... Can't win if you're not even in it!!

 

[Strelok]

Since this seems to be a reoccurring problem, have they ever considered a backup power system? Oh wait, it’s all made up anyways to increase prices

 

[Bloax]

micron had problems **** time to increase all DRAM prices due to uncertainty........

 

[Grimlakin]

When did ram become a commodity trade? And how the eff are product thresholds so fight that a 1 hour outage would increase prices? That makes zero sense to me. Plus how the hell do you have a power loss in the world of ups and redundant power feeds and backup generators. This has to fall on someone's shoulders.

 

[Brian_B]

RAM has been commodity for ... decades

 

[Nanobot]

When did ram become a commodity trade? And how the eff are product thresholds so fight that a 1 hour outage would increase prices? That makes zero sense to me. Plus how the hell do you have a power loss in the world of ups and redundant power feeds and backup generators. This has to fall on someone's shoulders.

Apparently while the outage was only an hour or two, production shut down for 3-4 days so they could figure out what went wrong. The reason prices will go up is because it will cause a shortage in the server segment. They're never going to charge more just to one segment (servers) vs another (consumer). So we all get to suffer together. On the flip side it might be a good time to buy Micron stock before it gets too costly to own.

 

[Armenius]

Apparently while the outage was only an hour or two, production shut down for 3-4 days so they could figure out what went wrong. The reason prices will go up is because it will cause a shortage in the server segment. They're never going to charge more just to one segment (servers) vs another (consumer). So we all get to suffer together. On the flip side it might be a good time to buy Micron stock before it gets too costly to own.

Too late. The stock is already at record highs. It's almost $20 higher now than at its peak before the pandemic.

 

[Nanobot]

Too late. The stock is already at record highs. It's almost $20 higher now than at its peak before the pandemic.

I know, but they are forecasting another 20% increase for 2021. Caveat emptor, ofc.