Over the past three decades, the DRAM market has been characterized by a period of phenomenal growth and devastating collapse years, according to IC Insights, in an excerpt from the MacLean Report.In recent years, the DRAM market has fallen by 37% in 2019, but has soared by 42% in 2021.Whatever the reason, the "boom, depression" cycle has reduced the number of major DRAM suppliers from 20 in the mid-1990s to six today.In 2021, Samsung, the three largest suppliers, SK Hynix, and Micron, had a combined 94% share of the DRAM market.South Korea-based Samsung and SK Hynix accounted for 71.3 per cent of global DRAM sales last year.

With a 44 percent market share, Samsung remained the world's largest DRAM supplier in 2021, with sales of nearly $41.9 billion, the report said.Last year, Samsung advanced its DRAM business in several ways, including mass production of the EUV-based 14nm DRAM in October 2021, after pioneering ultra-UV (EUV) lithography in March 2020.In the process, Samsung increased the number of EUV layers on its most advanced 14nm DDR5 from two to five-layer DRAM processes.

In November 2021, Samsung said it had developed a 14nm 16Gb low-power 5X (LPDDR5X) DRAM for high-speed applications such as 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and other big data applications.The company claims that LPDDR5X DRAM has data processing speeds of up to 8.5Gbps (1.3 times faster than existing 6.4Gbps LPDDR5 devices), saving about 20% of power consumption over LPDDR5 of memory.In addition, the company has released its first DRAM memory module supporting the new computing fast link (Compute Express Link, CXL) interconnection standards, and a 2GB GDDR6 and 2GB DDR4 car DRAM designed for autonomous electric vehicles and high-performance infotainment systems.

SK Hynix ranked second in the 2021 market with a DRAM market share of 28%, with sales of $26.6 billion, up 39%.DRAM accounts for approximately 71% of the company's total semiconductor sales in 2021, with 40% server DRAM; mobile DRAM 35%; PC DRAM 15%, and 5% consumer and graphics card DRAM each.In 2021, SK Hynix released what is said to be the highest-performing DDR5 DRAM in the industry, with a data speed capable of transmitting 163 full HD movies per second.The chip is known as HBM3 because it is Hynix's third generation high bandwidth memory.Like Samsung, SK Hynix has begun using EUV lithography in mass production of 8Gb LPDDR4 DRAM based on the fourth-generation 10nm process (1a nm).

In addition, Micron was the third-largest DRAM supplier in 2021, with DRAM sales up 41% to $21.9 billion, accounting for 23% of the global market share.Overall, DRAM accounts for about 73% of Micron's total annual IC sales of $30 billion.In 2021, Micron launched a 1a nm memory node.The node, driven by a new CPU platform and designed in part to support the transition from data centers to DDR5 DRAM, is expected to begin development later this year and gain growth momentum in 2023.Micron's 1a nm DRAM is also being used in low-power communication applications, including 5G smartphones.Although the process does not require EUV lithography, Micron has ordered EUV equipment and plans to produce DRAM using its 1 gamma (1 g a m m a) nanonode transition to EUV technology from 2024.

Source: 爱集微