#price increase SIMM's
19 messages in this thread
Hello,
The last few weeks the prices of memory modules (SIMM's etc.) went up.
From about US$ 25 to US$ 60 per Megabyte. Here in the Netherlands. All
this has to do with a disaster somewhere in Japan. I would like to know if
the price increase is worldwide.
Ernest Otte
Knowing how to fly, thus using AutoPilot
Ernest-
Remember Pearl Harbor.
This 'disaster' if true should be good news in the long run. The Japanese
hog has been at the trough for too long.
Send them a revolver with one bullet.
—USA—
Everett
Oregon
Everett,
Yep, it's confirmed. Just wanted to buy some 4Mb 32bits GVP. I don't find
it good news.
Ernest Otte
Knowing how to fly, thus using AutoPilot
Yep, it's worldwide, (at least it will be if it hasn't already!)
A resin plant burned down in Japan (the resin just happens to used in
making IC's, and this plant made 50% of worlds supply)
Bob Comer — Cruising the nets on AutoPilot from Cheyenne, Wyoming
From what I've heard it is a worldwide problem. A friend of mine at work
ordered some RAM for his uncle in Germany just last week, and the uncle
flew over that weekend to pick it up personally. His uncle said that he
couldn't find the RAM he was looking for at any price.
Steve
It was on the news the other day that a factory was totally destroyed by a
fire which was making a kind of resin which is used/needed for chip
production, namely isolation of the logic circuitry before assembling it
into the case (i.e. the 'chip'). This resin MUST have a certain quality
and the burt-down factory was one of the VERY few who are able to deliver
the resin in the needed quality. Therefore, prices were said to double in
reaction to this.
// Chris coming in from Germany
\X/ on AutoPilot 1.052……….
Chris-
Here in sunny (read rainy) Oregon there is a place that makes chips with
ceramic instead of resin. It's been talked up pretty much around here.
Evidently some systems don't need/use the resin jobs. If the computer
mfgrs. eliminate the need for resin type chips, then the price of
computers doesn't need to rise. I believe Intel makes the ceramic
insulated chips. Correction on the mfgr. name welcome if I'm wrong.
–Everett
Everett
Oregon
The chips aren't ceramic or plastic, the enclosures are. The ceramic has
better cooling properties but is more expensive. Many chips are offered
in a ceramic and a plastic version. The 040, for example, is ceramic only
because of the tempatures it operates at.
Dale Larson
– An Amiga Software Engineer with some time on his hands.
Yep.
Everett
Oregon
I wonder if the price of ZIPS if affected by it??
-Jonathan
So far the effect on prices is speculative (the "pipelines" and most
people have months of supply). It seems to have hit commodity PC SIMMs
harder than anything else so far.
Dale Larson
– An Amiga Software Engineer with some time on his hands.
I have called my senator and suggested a 75% windfall profits tax on
people who have increased chip prices in response to the "disaster" and
further punitive damages amounting to the windfall profit tax on volumes
projected from pre-distaster trends for distributors that stop selling to
avoid the tax. I've suggested that all tax thus collected go to deficit
reduction.
wmc – via Autopilot!
Didn't Bush just go on TV and ask gas stations to keep prices where they
were when the Gulf war started?
Maybe Clinton needs to go on and ask the chip people to play nice. 😉
Dale Larson
– An Amiga Software Engineer with some time on his hands.
Everett,
Ceramic packaging is older than plastic. It's also about 40% more
expensive. While it is possible that some components will be switched to
ceramic, the worldwide manufacturing capacity is much too small to absorb
even a small percentage of the demand.
Dean
DKB Software
OK. 40% is still cheaper than prices doubling and tripling. Market
speculation is not always a good thing.
Not being computerfluent I wouldn't know about the abilities of the
manufacturing sector.
Everett
Oregon
Ernest,
RAM Prices have increased in the US also. The factory that burned down
in Japan had a three month supply on hand and it burned down less than a
month ago. Sounds like price gouging, panic buying or both. My price on a
4 Meg SIMM went up 100%.
Jeff
Ernest,
I work as a Test Engineer at a semiconductor manufacturer here in Silicon
Valley. A plant in Japan that produced 50-60% of the word's supply of a
resin used in most plastic IC packages blew up.
My company (as I'm sure all semiconductor companies) has investigated the
short and long term effect of this. The resin company has stockpiles that
should last them through August-September, and most assembly houses have a
one or two month supply themselves. This should mean that even with no
change in the supply situation, reserves are good through at least
November.
There used to be a couple of US suppliers of this resin, but they dropped
out of the market in the '80s. There are some other suppliers that should
be able to take up some of the slack, and the original company is of
course embarking on a crash course to rebuild their capacity.
Additionally, there are several other resins on the market which can
possibly be substituted for this one. These are being investigated at
this very moment, I can assure you. There are other packaging
alternatives to plastic, as well; these may add up to a few dollars to the
actual cost to build the IC, but no where near the amount of increase
you'll see on the retail market.
The sad thing about this is how the market responds to any glitch in the
supply situation. When the US gov't. was *thinking* about the
possiblitity of increasing tariffs on Korean imports (5-10% of the
market), distributors saw their chance to increase prices by nearly 100%.
Two weeks later, they were back at their former prices. Here we are
seeing the same thing happen again. Just as in the oil market, any
perceived restriction in the supply is an opportunity for distributors
(and retailers) to gouge the market. They raise their prices long before
any supplier's price increases may hit them, and sell existing stock at
the higher price.
Locally, it is interesting to see that 9-bit SIMMS (those used in clones)
have nearly doubled in price, whereas 8-bit SIMMS haven't changed much at
all. Looks like this will have the biggest impact on the clone market,
what with the new RAM-hungry OS's just coming out. ;->
//
\X/ Amiga -Steve ——> On AutoPilot from Silicon Valley
Ernest,
The price increase is certainly apparent here in the States, with prices
as high as $100/meg…up from about $35/meg. Yup, the price "increase" is
worldwide.
However, it is also a documented fact that there is a four month supply of
the epoxy (which the destroyed factory produced) in channel. Right now,
there is no real shortage of either RAM or the materials to produce it
(although IBM's recent buying spree must have contributed to the current
situation).
My company is waiting as long as possible to buy (although computers, and
hence RAM, are badly needed). I suggest that everyone should tell their
vendors that this pricing increase isnot acceptable!
//Jonathan,
\\//via AutoPilot
Ernest,
It wasn't a disaster…it was a plant fire. Just so happens that the
plant that burned made something like 60% of the epoxy resin used to
encapsulate chips. No one was sure how much of this resin was stockpiled nor
how long it would take to get the plant back on line…or line up alternte
sources. As a result speculatrors drove up teh price of computer chips betting
that supplies would tighten up.
It seems that until this plant burned…no one ever considered how many
vendors there were for this particular resin…nor how many manufacturing
sites. It was one of those 'commodities' that everyone took for granted.
Don