DRAM content in laptops will grow moderately by 25% this year

According to IHS iSuppli's DRAM research report, the growth of DRAM in PCs will slow down sharply in 2011 and the following four years, mainly due to the development of ultra-thin portable computers and cloud computing services. PC is a traditional big player using DRAM.

The DRAM content of each notebook is expected to be 4.0GB this year, which is lower than the previous optimistic expectations of 4.2GB. According to the new forecast, the notebook DRAM content in 2011 will only increase by 25% from 2010, an increase of 6 percentage points from the original forecast of 31%.

The gap between the initial expectations of laptop DRAM content and the adjusted expectations will become more apparent in the next four years.

The gap between the two is 0.2GB this year. In 2012, it will expand to 0.6GB. The DRAM content of each notebook will drop from 5.7GB to 5.1GB. This gap will increase to 1.0GB in 2013, expand to 1.9GB in 2014, and reach the peak of 2.4GB by 2015. As a result, compared with the original expectation, the 2012 growth rate will be estimated to decrease by 8 percentage points. 2013 The year will be reduced by 5 percentage points, by 8 percentage points in 2014 and by 1 percentage point in 2015. The DRAM content in the notebook is expected to be 10.2 GB by 2015, and the previous forecast is 12.6 GB.

Ultra-thin book and cloud: The main reason for the increase of DRAM content growth caused by DRAM content growth is the ultra thin book, which is produced by Intel's thin and light notebook, with a maximum DRAM capacity of 4GB and extra memory. The demand is met by NAND flash memory. Intel is expected to shift its focus from traditional notebooks to ultra-thin notebooks in order to compete more effectively with tablets such as the Apple iPad. The ultra-thin noteworthy attention will inhibit the growth of DRAM content, which will continue until at least 2014. After 2014, the ultra-thin market may begin to saturate.

With the expected growth of ultra-thin books, the DRAM market may benefit from one aspect. Since this new type of portable notebook may utilize higher-priced, lower-power high-end DRAM chips, the impact of slowing DRAM content growth may be mitigated, resulting in a reduction in overall losses. However, IHS believes that the ultra-thin book will still be a negative factor that the DRAM industry needs to deal with. It has the most serious impact on the DRAM industry.

The second factor that is expected to hinder the growth of laptop DRAM content is cloud computing. Although the concept of cloud computing has been proposed for many years, it is only now beginning to feel its impact on various types of equipment. A recent example is that the Amazon launch of the Silk browser shifts some of the complex tasks of the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet to the cloud. This is just one example of the increasing importance of cloud services. Cloud services will certainly have a long-term impact on the DRAM content of PC products.

The economic downturn and the rapid growth of tablet PCs are all detrimental to the DRAM industry. In addition to the above two major factors, there are many other factors that will inhibit the growth of notebook DRAM content in the short term. For example, because of the economic downturn, financially stressed consumers are less likely to let go and spend money, so the PC industry will introduce more inexpensive products and use fewer DRAMs to meet current needs. Although manufacturers will eventually increase DRAM content in PCs to compete with rapidly growing tablets in terms of technical parameters, in the short term vendors are more likely to include DRAMs in cost reduction targets in order to preserve valuable profits.

IHS believes that the period in which PC DRAMs grew at a rate of 40% in previous years has clearly become a thing of the past. DRAM makers know this and are now turning their attention to improving mobile DRAM production for smartphones and tablets, which may provide DRAM with the next growth opportunity. For example, the tablet's DRAM capacity will increase by nearly 120% this year, from 274MB last year to 598MB.