DRAM chipmaker Nanya Technology Corp (“옱‰È‹Z) foresees a good year for the DRAM industry, with average selling prices for the product expected to continue increasing in the first half, Nanya president Lee Pei-ing (—›”|‰l) said yesterday.

gDRAM prices are expected to climb this quarter from last quarter and prices next quarter will be higher than this quarter,h Lee told an investorsf conference.

DRAM prices fell in the first half of last year on weak demand, then began to bounce back in the second half.

Lee said that market demand would slightly exceed supply in the first six months of this year.

Demand this year is expected to remain stable, supported by increasing demand for more powerful smartphone memories, servers, high-end notebook computers, and the increasing popularity of 4K ultra-high-definition TVs, Lee said.

The company has installed the equipment necessary to begin 20-nanometer (nm) production as part of the companyfs plan to covert its technology from 30nm to the more cost-efficient 20nm.

The 20nm process is scheduled to start trial production at the end of this month, with full-scale production set to begin between the end of next quarter and the beginning of the third quarter, Lee said.

By the first quarter of next year, 20nm production capacity could reach 30,000 wafers per month, the same as the 30,000 monthly capacity of the 30nm process, he said.

Total wafer production is likely to decline by a high-single percentage point this year from last year, as the firm has had to shut down some production lines to enable the conversion, Lee said.

However, Lee said the company is confident that its annual performance could still outpace last yearfs on the back of the firmfs reductions in costs and the recovering average prices of DRAM chips.

Nanya yesterday reported quarterly net income of NT$20.06 billion (US$640.24 million), the highest in the firmfs history, mainly boosted by an asset disposal gain from selling its stake in DRAM joint-venture Inotera Memories Inc (‰Ø˜±‰È‹Z).

Nanya saw a NT$20.04 billion-gain from selling its stake in Inotera to US memorychip maker Micron Technology Inc and booked a profit share of NT$477 million from Inotera last quarter, the companyfs data showed.

The quarterly result translates into earnings per share of NT$7.33 last quarter, compared with the NT$0.68 per share over the same period in 2015, the data showed.

The DRAM chipmakerfs accumulative net profit last year reached NT$23.7 billion, or NT$8.66 per share, representing a 38.3 percent surge from the previous yearfs NT$17.14 billion, or NT$7.07 per share, the firm said.

By: DocMemory
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