ALLPCB
1. Memory chips as a major integrated circuit market
Memory chips are a category of integrated circuits within semiconductors and are among the most widely applied and highly standardized foundational IC products. Semiconductors can be classified into optoelectronic devices, sensors, discrete devices, and integrated circuits. Integrated circuits account for the largest share of semiconductor value, approximately 82.64% of the semiconductor industry market.
Storage devices are hardware components used to store and read data in computer systems. Based on storage medium they can be optical, magnetic, or semiconductor storage. Optical storage reads and writes data using optical methods. Magnetic storage uses magnetic media to store information. Storage chips, or semiconductor memories, store information using electrical methods in semiconductor media.
Based on function, computer memory can be divided into six levels: registers, cache, main memory, disk cache, fixed disk, and removable storage media.
DRAM and flash are currently the main memory chip types on the market. Flash is divided into NOR and NAND. Because NAND uses pin multiplexing, its read speed is somewhat slower than NOR, but its erase and write speeds are much faster.
2. Vertical specialization and M&A accelerate supply chain consolidation
The memory chip sector is an important branch of the semiconductor industry with broad downstream application space. Upstream participants in the memory chip supply chain include suppliers of silicon wafers, photoresist, and target materials. Midstream players are memory chip manufacturers responsible for design, manufacturing, and packaging and testing. Downstream are companies in application fields such as consumer electronics and automotive electronics.
The supply chain mainly consists of IC design, wafer fabrication, packaging, and testing. From a business model perspective, it is divided mainly into IDM and vertical specialization modes.
Industry development and technology upgrades drive changes in the supply chain model, and mergers and acquisitions accelerate consolidation across the chain.
3. Two geographic shifts in the memory industry
The memory chip industry originated in the United States and subsequently underwent two major geographic shifts, moving from the US to Japan and then to South Korea.
As the memory market accelerated, manufacturers in China emerged.
4. Technology trends in memory chips
DDR, LPDDR, and GDDR are three memory standards based on DRAM.
DDR has become the mainstream memory for PCs and servers due to its performance and cost advantages.
Benefiting from rapid growth in end-device demand, LPDDR and GDDR have entered a period of rapid iteration.
