Micron's Inotera Plant for DRAM Shut Down

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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If you were waiting for the right time to buy DRAM for a new build, that time might be right effing now. One of Micron's plants is now shut down and has been forced to scrap about 60,000 12-inch wafers due to a contamination situation. (Micron recently bought this Taiwan Inotera DRAM plant as show in the video below.) DRAM ASP was already set to rise 5% in Q3'17 due to tight supplies, so this will surely impact that even more.

Check out the video....

A Taiwan-based DRAM foundry owned by Micron Technology, which was formerly Inotera Memories, recently scrapped half of the wafers produced at its 12-inch fab due to problems associated with the use of nitrogen, according to a report from Taiwan's TechNews.

In addition to the loss of wafer production, the problems with nitrogen gas have caused production lines at the fab to stop temporarily, said the report, without citing its source.

About 60,000 12-inch wafers have been scrapped at the fab, which are capable of producing over 120,000 units per month, the report indicated.

Update: Reuters is reporting a much different picture of the situation, which would be a great thing for consumers.


"Regarding recent rumours about Micron's fabrication facility in Taoyuan, Taiwan, Micron hereby clarifies that there was no nitrogen leaking incident nor evacuating of personnel,"Micron said in a statement. "There was indeed a minor facility event but operations are recovering speedily without material impact to the business."

 
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It seems crazy. I know DRAM prices are historically volatile but I can't recall a situation like this though I've not kept up constantly with DRAM pricing over the years. I just checked what the DRAM in my rig costs now, $550 today versus $290 what I paid for it right around a year ago. I wish all hardware appreciated like that. Well, maybe not.
 
If they are using a nitrogen envelope during the UV process, it's no wonder. It leads to increased Nitrogen fixation. Dur.
 
I wonder if the profits they'll make off of increased prices will make up for the purchase price of the facility...
 
Reuters has a different story:
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/micro...recovering-after-output-hiccup-20170705-00293

"Regarding recent rumours about Micron's fabrication
facility in Taoyuan, Taiwan, Micron hereby clarifies that there
was no nitrogen leaking incident nor evacuating of personnel,"
Micron said in a statement. "There was indeed a minor facility
event but operations are recovering speedily without material
impact to the business."

I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle...
 
I remember when the floods or was it fire raised prices for a few years.
 
Thailand floods all over again?

G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 (PC4 19200) Intel Z170 Platform / Intel X99 Platform Desktop Memory Model F4-2400C15D-32GVR

6/27/2016
$119.99

Now:
$232.99
 
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Yeah, that's what made me so happy when I found ONE new 4790k still in stock at Microcenter! 16GB DDR3 gets a new lease-on-life, instead of me paying over $150 for it's DDR4 3200 replacement.

Damn 2500k giving-out a year before I was looking to replace it, but luckily I had a Haswell Pentium board laying around :D

SSDs, ram, and GPUs are all fucking overpriced right now. Worst time I can ever recall to build a new PC! A midrange gaming system with SSD probably costs $400 more than it did last year!
 
Then :
dr-evil-air-quotes-hdds-thailand-floods.jpg




Now :
dr-evil-air-quotes-ram-accident.jpg
 
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What a huuuuuuuuuuuuge coincidence.
This has happened at least 3x in my memory, new CPU platform, DRAM prices through the roof, usually when AMD is doing well too.
You'll get your 20 sheckel class action lawsuit check in the mail in a year or two.
I really want to go TR or Ryzen hold me over but this is just making me want to get another 2600k and ride that out till 2018....
 
Oddly enough, I kinda sidegraded a bunch of spare gaming rigs from OCed 3570Ks to 2500K/2600Ks.
Sandys have dropped to almost i7 920 levels of worthlessness ($-wise), while Ivys still command a decent amount of $.

Fine by me. SB is way easier to OC without the stupid TIM / delidding, and the higher OCs more than make up for the ~3% IPC increase.
 
If this is real, sure be nice to get a hold of some of those discarded wafers. How badass would it be to cut those into squares, embed them in clear hard resin and make tiles out of them. Imagine an entire bathroom made with shiny re-purposed DRAM tiles!
 
Theres nothing on our internal homepage about it. If anything pops up and Im allowed to relay it I will.
 
wow dram has had a bad go of it.

first there was a "fire" at sk hynix now a "nitrogen leak".

i love the dram cartel. they're so trust worthy. it's not like they have ever colluded to keep prices high... oh wait!
 
wow dram has had a bad go of it.

first there was a "fire" at sk hynix now a "nitrogen leak".

i love the dram cartel. they're so trust worthy. it's not like they have ever colluded to keep prices high... oh wait!

"If we sabotage your DRAM plant, will you promise to do ours as well to keep supply low and prices high?"
 
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