Even though manufacturers continue to cut production, demand for servers, smartphones, and laptops has yet to pick up, leaving the NAND Flash market in a state of oversupply. TrendForce predicts that the average price of NAND Flash will continue to decline in Q2, with a quarter-on-quarter drop of 5-10%. The key to restoring supply-demand balance lies in whether manufacturers will further reduce production. TrendForce believes that if current demand does not continue to decrease, NAND Flash prices may stabilize and rebound in Q4. On the other hand, if demand remains weak during the peak season, the price rebound may be delayed.
As Intel Sapphire Rapids and AMD Genoa server platforms are about to enter mass production, recent market reports suggest that Server DDR5 RDIMM is facing PMIC compatibility issues. DRAM manufacturers and PMIC suppliers are working on resolving the issue. TrendForce believes this situation will have two effects: first, DRAM manufacturers will increase their procurement share of MPS (Monolithic Power Systems) PMICs, which are unaffected by the issue. Second, as current DDR5 Server DRAM production remains on older processes, short-term supply will inevitably be affected, leading to an estimated Q2 DDR5 Server DRAM price decline converging from the originally forecasted 15-20% to 13-18%.
As the global economy faces higher inflation risks and inventory corrections in the downstream sector in the second half of 2022, IC design companies are more sensitive and responsive to market changes than wafer foundries. TrendForce states that factors such as weaker consumer spending, the pandemic, reduced corporate IT expenditures, and a slowdown in demand from cloud service providers have all impacted the total revenue performance of the top 10 IC design companies in Q4 2022, with a quarter-on-quarter decline of 9.2%, approximately $33.96 billion.
