Micron says DRAM, NAND shortages will persist for another year

RAM
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

While reporting the fiscal results for its third quarter, computer memory and data storage manufacturer Micron revealed that it believes DRAM and NAND shortages will continue through next year.

At the same time in a separate press release, the company announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Texas Instruments to sell of one of its manufacturing plants in Lehi, Utah where it previously made 3D Xpoint chips through a partnership with Intel.

The sale of the plant is valued at $1.5bn by Micron and in total, the company will receive $900m in cash from Texas Instruments and approximately $600m in value from select tools and other assets.

Shortages vs demand

Back in March of this year, Micron warned of an industry-wide “severe undersupply” for DRAM chips and so far demand for these chips has risen by 20 percent this year. When it came to NAND chips, the company warned demand was rising in the “low-to-mid-30% rage” though there was still some excess supply.

During a recent presentation, Micron updated its previous position stating that “industry bit demand growth” is expected be slightly higher than 20 percent as there is still unmet demand for DRAM.  However, the company expects the current DRAM shortages to continue into next year and this is true for NAND chips as well which are also growing at the same rate.

Despite these shortages, Micron was still able to bring in $7.42bn in revenue during the third quarter of this year. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra provided further insight on the company's Q3 fiscal results in a press release, saying:

“Micron set multiple market and product revenue records in our third quarter and achieved the largest sequential earnings improvement in our history. Our industry-leading 1α DRAM and 176-layer NAND now represent a meaningful portion of our production, and Micron is in the best position ever to capitalize on the long-term demand trends across the data center, intelligent edge and user devices.”

Via ZDNet

Anthony Spadafora

After working with the TechRadar Pro team for the last several years, Anthony is now the security and networking editor at Tom’s Guide where he covers everything from data breaches and ransomware gangs to the best way to cover your whole home or business with Wi-Fi. When not writing, you can find him tinkering with PCs and game consoles, managing cables and upgrading his smart home.