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Ah, a breath of fresh sanity from someone who knows the industry. That is very welcome, thank you. The semiconductor industry is brutal in general. Selling to

Ah, a breath of fresh sanity from someone who knows the industry. That is very welcome, thank you. The semiconductor industry is brutal in general. Selling to consumers is worse, but the worst by far is the part that sells any type of memory. Forget the conspiracy theories. This space is full of dead companies. Someone will eat you.

batista 14y ago
>The semiconductor industry is brutal in general. Selling to consumers is worse, but the worst by far is the part that sells any type of memory. Really? Because there have been all kinds of price-fixing scandals and accusations for the last 2 decades... Price fixing does not sound very cut-throat to me...
- petermonsson 14y ago
  The only DRAM price fixing scandal that I know of is the one from 1998 to 2002 which gave the involved parties litigation on their backs up until 2010. If you know of any others, please let me know. Google did not turn up anything else. Anyway, I want to explain why the DRAM world is brutal: Here is the DRAM top 10 from 2006: http://i.cmpnet.com/eetimes/seminews/2007/chart1_020107.gif http://i.cmpnet.com/eetimes/seminews/2007/chart1_020107.gif And today the state is as follows: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/david-manners-semiconductor-blog/2012/03/top-ten-less-2-dram-companies.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/david-manners-semicon... Samsung: Eating everyone Hynix: Almost breaking even Qimonda: Dead Micron: Making money Elpida: Bankrupt Nanya: Losing more money than it makes Powerchip: Barely alive with 0.1% market share ProMos: Has sold its fabs, soon to be dead Etron: Alive, but with less that 0.1% market share and 15 cent loss per dollar sold. Winbond: Now only in specialty DRAM So, Samsung and Micron are doing well, Hynix is barely OK and the rest are sunk. Yes, I believe that the DRAM competition is fierce and brutal.

batista 14y ago

>The semiconductor industry is brutal in general. Selling to consumers is worse, but the worst by far is the part that sells any type of memory. Really? Because there have been all kinds of price-fixing scandals and accusations for the last 2 decades... Price fixing does not sound very cut-throat to me...

petermonsson 14y ago
The only DRAM price fixing scandal that I know of is the one from 1998 to 2002 which gave the involved parties litigation on their backs up until 2010. If you know of any others, please let me know. Google did not turn up anything else. Anyway, I want to explain why the DRAM world is brutal: Here is the DRAM top 10 from 2006: http://i.cmpnet.com/eetimes/seminews/2007/chart1_020107.gif http://i.cmpnet.com/eetimes/seminews/2007/chart1_020107.gif And today the state is as follows: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/david-manners-semiconductor-blog/2012/03/top-ten-less-2-dram-companies.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/david-manners-semicon... Samsung: Eating everyone Hynix: Almost breaking even Qimonda: Dead Micron: Making money Elpida: Bankrupt Nanya: Losing more money than it makes Powerchip: Barely alive with 0.1% market share ProMos: Has sold its fabs, soon to be dead Etron: Alive, but with less that 0.1% market share and 15 cent loss per dollar sold. Winbond: Now only in specialty DRAM So, Samsung and Micron are doing well, Hynix is barely OK and the rest are sunk. Yes, I believe that the DRAM competition is fierce and brutal.