Well, at first everything was so nice… The memory prices went almost down to $2 for 128Mbit chip (see this story) and it looked as if nothing could prevent the prices from resting there at least until autumn. However, no one could then think that Hynix Company, which is the number 3 memory maker in the world will start reequipping its production lines in June. Of course, this is natural and necessary and it will do only good in the future, but so far… So far the company is busy modifying and upgrading its equipment, the production went down and the competitors got a brilliant opportunity to speculate on the memory prices.

I am pretty much sure that the memory makers still have a lot of chips in stock, however, this slow time at Hynix allows them to start dictating their conditions. For instance in the end of June Samsung announced that they would not sell their 128Mbit chips cheaper than for $2.5 per piece. I don’t think that they will be able to go on like that for long, especially since Hynix will little by little increase their production capacities. And in the meanwhile the memory prices keep growing and have already reached the following rates (the data is taken from DRAMeXchange):

• 256Mbit (32Ìx8) DDR266 SDRAM: - $6.00 per unit (on May 24 - $5.59), growth - 7%;
• 128Mbit (16Ìx8) DDR266 SDRAM: $2.95 (on May 24 - $1.84), growth - 40%;
• 128Mbit (16Ìx8) PC133 SDRAM: - $2.55 (on May 24 - $1.81), growth - 60%.

The only exception make 256Mbit PC133 SDRAM chips, which price dropped from $5.99 to $5 within a month. As a result, we witness a paradox: the 10 times as few chips (256Mbit PC133 SDRAM) sell at a lower price than their much more mass counterparts (256Mbit DDR). It seems to me to be the first precedent like that.

Of course, this price increase is nor that dramatic yet, but it is definitely quite tangible. By the way, note that 256Mbit chips are not so subject to price changes: their production volumes are not high enough to make the pricing speculations profitable. However, the volumes keep growing, and who knows...