Weekly Industry Highlights (Weekly 1 for 2025 & Weekly 53 for 2024)

Market:HBM、NAND、SSD

01. Agency forecasts 70 per cent growth in HBM shipments by 2025

TechInsights reported on 25th February that the demand for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) has risen sharply with the growth of AI technologies, especially the increase in data-intensive applications such as machine learning and deep learning, TechInsights reported. HBM shipments are expected to grow by 70% year-on-year by 2025, and this growth will drive a reshaping of the DRAM market landscape, with manufacturers prioritising the production of HBM to meet the demand for low-latency, high-bandwidth memory solutions for data centres and AI processors.

02. Huirong Forecast: NAND Market to Recover in the Second Half of Next Year

Despite sluggish market demand in the first half of next year, it will pick up in the second half, and the supply and demand in the NAND market may be balanced or in short supply, said Gou Jiazhang, general manager of Huirong Technology, at an event on 25 December. Gou Jiazhang is optimistic about market growth in 2026. He pointed out that demand in the industrial control sector will start to pick up from the second quarter, and consumer electronics will follow suit. NAND prices were under pressure in the first half of the year, but are expected to be balanced in the second half by demand for enterprise SSDs. Gou Jiazhang is also bullish on QLC technology, which is expected to grow in penetration and be commercially available on a large scale by 2027, driving AI development and reducing costs. With strong demand for AI in the cloud and robust server orders, Gou is optimistic about AI development.

03. KIOXIA 2TB SSD price drops below ￥15,000, some models out of stock and price hikes noticeable

On December 25th, according to the latest survey conducted by Junichi Sato and the editorial team of AKIBA PC Hotline!, the in-store prices of HDDs, SSDs, RAM, and CPUs at Akihabara shops show that the price of KIOXIA (Armor Man) 2TB SSDs has fallen below 15,000 yen, and there has been a significant increase in the number of specials and price reductions, especially on the high-speed models. However, some models are experiencing price increases and stock-outs due to oversupply.

Major price developments: Crucial T705 2TB SSD: The price of Crucial T705 2TB SSD with heatsink dropped to JPY42,980, making it a popular choice in the market.Crucial T700 4TB SSD: Crucial T700 4TB SSD without heatsink became a popular choice in the market with a price of JPY75,900. low-priced choice in the PCIe 5.0 4TB SSD category.MSI SPATIUM M570 2TB SSD: The low-priced choice in the 2TB category at ￥39,800.ADATA LEGEND 970 1TB SSD: The low-priced choice in the 1TB category at ￥28,358.Western Digital WD Black SN850X 2TB SSD: Price drops to ￥23,980 for the model without heatsink. Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB SSD: High-priced option in the 4TB category at ￥44,980.Kingston NV3 2TB SSD: Price increases to ￥17,980.KIOXIA EXCERIA PLUS G3 2TB SSD: The price dropped significantly to ￥14,979 in the 14 December survey, making it the cheapest option in the 2TB category on that day.

Out-of-stock and price hikes: Crucial T500 1TB SSD: price increased to ￥13,800 due to tight stock.Crucial P310 SSD: both the regular-size 500GB and the ultra-small-size 2TB are out of stock.Western Digital WD Red SN700 2TB SSD: price dropped to ￥34,180, but out of stock at some shops.

Original Manufacturer Updates:DRAM, Murata, SK Hynix

04. Samsung's P2 fab to build 10nm 7th generation DRAM pilot line

Samsung Electronics' P2 fab in Pyeongtaek is planning to build a 10nm seventh-generation DRAM (1d DRAM) pilot line to enhance its competitiveness and yield in next-generation products. The construction is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of 2024 and is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2025. While the exact production scale of the pilot line has not been disclosed, industry estimates put the monthly capacity at around 10,000 wafers. The pilot line is part of Samsung's strategic layout for mass production of 1c DRAMs in 2025 and 1d DRAMs in 2026, demonstrating Samsung's strategy to aggressively develop its storage technology sector.

05. Murata acquires Sensoride to strengthen automotive and robotics radar technology

On 24 December, Murata Manufacturing announced that its subsidiary Murata Electronics North America, Inc. has signed an agreement to acquire Sensoride Corporation. Founded in 2021, Sensoride has a strong reputation for its high-resolution radar technology for automotive applications, robotics and drones. The acquisition is an important strategic step for Murata in enhancing its radar technology capabilities and driving the development of innovative radar solutions.

Sensoride's radar technology, which provides fine-grained environmental sensing capabilities, will complement Murata's existing product line and help the company accelerate the expansion of its radar solutions in next-generation autonomous driving systems, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and robotics applications.

06. SK Hynix World Debuts 321-Layer TLC NAND Flash Memory

On 27 December it was reported that SK Hynix announced a major breakthrough, overtaking Samsung to become the world's first company to mass-produce 321-layer triple-level cell (TLC) NAND flash memory. This technological advancement is expected to allow high-capacity memory to come to market at a more affordable price, and SK Hynix's recently released 1 terabit 4D NAND chip has once again set a new storage record.

A year ago, SK Hynix was also the first company to launch 238-layer NAND.The introduction of 321-layer NAND flash is significant for increasing the storage density of consumer and enterprise SSDs, and its high-density packaging technology is expected to lead to more affordable SSD solutions, with capacities of even more than 100TB. This NAND flash is particularly critical for AI data centres, and will also be beneficial for other high-performance applications that require energy-efficient storage.

Industry information: AI smartphone, M5 chip

07. Demand for AI smartphones promises new growth for semiconductor industry

Semiconductor industry searches for new growth in the face of a possible slowdown in global data centre investment. 26 December 2024 Doug Lefever, CEO of Advantest, a supplier to NVIDIA, suggests that demand for AI smartphones is expected to drive industry growth. Despite strong investments in AI by large tech companies, data centre investments could slow down, impacting the semiconductor supply chain.Lefever is bullish on the future of AI smartphones, believing that the market will see rapid growth once there are breakthrough applications. Currently, several manufacturers have launched AI mobile phones, and AI features are expected to become an important trend in the smartphone market.

08. European chip giants increase investment in China

Recently, European semiconductor companies such as STMicroelectronics (STM), NXP and Infineon have increased their investments in China to cope with the market uncertainty brought about by geopolitical tensions and to capture the huge potential of China's new energy vehicle market.

-Infineon CEO Jochen Hanebeck said that in order to meet the urgent demand of Chinese customers for localised production, Infineon has decided to adjust its production layout and shift the manufacturing of some of its products to its foundry in China.

-STMicroelectronics announced a partnership with Hua Hong Hongli to promote the foundry business of 40nm MCUs, and plans to produce such chips locally in China.

-NXP is also trying to find ways to serve Chinese customers, and plans to establish a Chinese supply chain and place some front-end manufacturing in China.

09. Apple's M5 chip is about to hit the market with a major upgrade in packaging technology

On 23 December 2024, Tianfeng International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo disclosed the latest progress of Apple's M5 series of chips. the M5 chip has been in the prototype stage for several months, and is expected to be the fastest in the first half of 2024 mass production to market, while the M5 Pro/Max, M5 Ultra is expected to be the fastest in the second half of 2025 to start mass production, at the latest, the whole series in 2026 debut. Compared to its predecessor, the M5 chip has only minor process optimisations, and instead of using TSMC's 2nm process, it is built on TSMC's third-generation 3nm process (N3P). Despite the minor process optimisation, the M5 series chips have achieved significant breakthroughs in packaging technology, especially the M5 Pro, Max and Ultra, which will adopt the SoIC packaging technology for server-grade chips, which will enable the chips to achieve a higher level of integration and lower power consumption.