Price jump that typically coincides with the introduction of new smartphone models in 3Q and 4Q is not expected due to disrupted buying patterns and cautious discretionary spending.

IC Insights’ October Update to The McClean Report showed the monthly average selling price (ASP) of DRAM started on a steep downward trend in the second half of 2018 that eventually bottomed out at $3.04 in December 2019. DRAM prices rebounded in the first half of 2020 as memory demand grew for personal and enterprise computing systems after the Covid-19 virus forced a rapid and dramatic shift to online-based education, shopping, and business activity.  DRAM demand also came from new data center server computers that were needed to handle the surge of online activity.  Figure 1 shows that the DRAM ASP climbed to $3.70 in June 2020, before tapering off to $3.51 in July and August this year.

Figure 1

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However, market uncertainty looms as TSMC’s shipments to HiSilicon ceased in mid-September.

IC Insights recently released its September Update to the 2020 McClean Report that presented the second of a two-part analysis on the global IC foundry industry and included a look at the pure-play foundry market by region.

China was responsible for essentially all of the total pure-play foundry market increase in 2018. In 2019, the U.S./China trade war slowed China’s economic growth but its foundry marketshare still increased by two percentage points to 21%. Moreover, despite the Covid-19 shutdown of China’s economy earlier this year, China’s share of the pure-play foundry market is forecast to be 22% in 2020, 17 percentage points greater than it registered in 2010 (Figure 1).

Figure 1

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