DM>  On the 23/06/96, Bob waffled to Bill..

 DM>  Hello Bob,

 BL> The bit that stuns me is that 4Mb RAM is $45. That values the chips
 BL> at  $2.50 each! I costed 16M RAM at $150 allowing $10 a chip. It must
 BL> mean  that 16Mb could go as low as $50, eventually. Gee...

 DM>  I heard on the rumour mill that it could go as low as $5.00
 DM>  /meg.

i thought you might be interested in this article from "reseller
news". the prices quoted seem to indicate that it may be a month or so
old.

ALREADY JOSTLED BY turbulence in the dynamic RAM market, memory chip makers
are cinching down their seat belts for an even rougher ride over the next
few months. With prices of dynamic RAM chips in a freefall, so are the
hopes for profits at many of the world's largest semiconductor makers.
	Naoki Sato, industry analyst at Merrill Lynch Japan, expects pretax
profits at Japanese DRAM makers this fiscal year to drop between 20 per
cent and 30 per cent, while other less bullish analysts say profits might
fall twice that much.
	The drop wasn't supposed to happen. Fuelled mainly by a steady growth in
the world's PC industry, the DRAM bonanza seemed likely to continue until
the year 2000, in a major break with the semiconductor industry's cyclical
history, analysts had predieted.
	But spot market prices have hit new lows- below cost levels-with 4Mbit
DRAM selling for approximately $US3 and 16Mbit DRAM at about $US10. DRAM
has been the main profit generators for the past two years at many of the
world's largest semiconductor makers, mainly in Japan and South Korea.
	Since the DRAM chip is one basic building block of the IT industry,
showing up as the main memory in PCs and a range of other electronics
products, the falling prices promise to have far- j reaching side effects.
	Third-ranked DRAM maker NEC hasannounced its plans for a merger with US PC
vendor Packard Bell Electronics, in which NEC currently owns 19.99 per
cent. The tightening ties with Packard Bell are rooted in NEC's need t o
squeeze revenues and profits from other areas of business, now that its
DRAM fortunes are flagging, the offficial said.
	Top-ranked DRAM maker Samsung 0 Electronics, meanwhile, is cutting back on
its DRAM production after three years of breakneck expansion and two years
in which, analysts say, it raked in more than $US4 billion in DRAM profits.
	Until this month, Samsung's DRAM lines had been churning out chips around
the clock, 0 365 days a year. However, in an effort to fight the current
oversupply of DRAM, the Seoul- 0 based company this month will begin
closing f its 16Mbit DRAM plants two days a month to cut output from 14
million to 12 million chips  per month.
	In Japan, meanwhile, rumours abound that several top makers are planning
similar cutbacks. "So far no-one has caneelled any investment, but
we're waiting to see who blinks first," said an offieial at Fujitsu.
	It may be that governmental pressures eould foree the hands of at least
some chip makers. On May 31, one of the few remaining US-based DRAM makers,
Mieron Technology, announeed that it has filed a dumping complaint with the
US Department of Commeree against South Korea's Hyundai Eleetronies
Industries and LG Semicon.
	"Prices of DRAM have been dropping very rapidly, and we have asked
the Department of Commeree to take immediate and deeisive action by doing a
quiek review of the amount of dumping now ocourring," said Steve
Appleton, Mieron's chairman, CEO and president, in a statement. "We
have strong evidence that Hyundai and LG Semicon have onee again chosen to
sell well below production costs," he added.
	As the largest single consumer of memory chips, the US has considerable
pull on the industry as a whole. Chip vendors are required to charge a
'Yair market value" for their goods and cannot sell them below cost.
	Nevertheless, large Japanese vendors may see US government intervention as
the only way to stabilise prices, said Merrill Lynch's Sato. "I think
they're hoping for it in their hearts."
	Things will get worse before they get better. Hyundai Eleetronics and LG
Semicon both responded to the Samsung cutback announeement by restating
their determination to aggressively expand pro duction of 16Mbit DRAM by
year's end.
	Sources in Seoul said that Hyundai is now the most aggressive price buster
in the spot market, offering 16Mbit parts for as low as $US9.50 last week,
bringing the cost for the silicon portion of lMb of DRAM to below XUS5.
	In addition to pricing pressure from Korean makers, several Taiwan-based
DRAM upstarts, including Nan Ya Technology and Powerchip Semiconductor, are
also scheduled to start volume production of 16Mbit DRAM later this year,
officials said.
	With such additional capacity steadily coming online, analysts now expect
the DRAM pricing slump to continue well into next year, and most probably
into 1998.
	"We might have deeent DRAM market strength in the second half of
1997, if we see things like telecom taking up a lot of silicon," said
Matt Cleary, Seoul-based semiconductor analyst at HG Asia. "But at
this point I really think that the first half of 1997 is going to look
terrible" for the DRAM makers, he added.
	For PC users, however, the makers' headaches are good news. Cheaper
silicon prices translate into ever cheaper DRAM modules. In Taiwan, for
example, the street price for 8Mb single in-line memory modules (SIMMs)
already has fallen
below $US100.	

           keith

ps. i didn't type all that in, it is a virtually uneditted output from
omniscan pro (i removed a few excess c/rs). ocr technology has come a long
way. the original was in 3 columns, the software has even re-assembled
hyphenated words!
@EOT:

--- WinPoint 0.2.05 Alpha