DRAM Prices Continue to Surge in August

From PC World: DRAM prices continued to rise in August, finally reaching profitable levels for most chip makers after they reached multiyear lows early this year.

Contract prices of 1Gb DDR3 (double data rate, third generation) chips rose 18.9 percent in August to US$1.58 per chip, while the price of older DDR2 (second generation) chips increased 13.7 percent to $1.45 during the month, market researcher Gartner said in its weekly Semiconductor DQ Monday Report.

The price increases come at the most important time of the year for PC manufacturers to build and send computers to global markets. For many countries, the back-to-school season is kicking in and many students return to school with new laptop PCs or parents buy desktops. The rush to put goods on store shelves often causes price increases in the DRAM market, and sometimes prices don't stop moving higher until around the end of October, when stores want to have products ready for the end-of-year holiday season.

This year, the launch of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system could cause higher demand as stores buy systems to have ready for the Oct. 22 launch date. Dell, the world's second biggest computer vendor by shipments, also spurred talk of better PC sales later this year when it said last week it expected revenue in the second half of the year to be stronger than the first.

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