Samsung transfers DRAM production capacity to CMOS

According to foreign media reports, due to the continuous shortage of foundry production capacity, especially the shortage of 8-inch wafer production capacity in mature processes, it has led to power management ICs, driver ICs, MOSFETs, CMOS image sensors, and some Products that mainly rely on 8-inch wafer production capacity are out of stock. Therefore, South Korea’s Samsung, the world’s second-largest CMOS image sensor manufacturer, has announced plans to transfer part of its DRAM production capacity to CMOS image sensor production in order to continue to maintain the uninterrupted supply of CMOS image sensors.
 
The report pointed out that Samsung’s current global market share of CMOS image sensors is second only to SONY. Samsung's major CMOS customers are mainly Chinese mobile phone brands Xiaomi and OPPO. Take Xiaomi 11 as an example. There are 4 camera lenses in the front and rear, and up to 4 of them are Samsung's ISOCELL solution. Therefore, in order to strive for market share and keep the supply to major customers from being interrupted, Samsung decided to transfer the original production capacity of DRAM memory to the production of CMOS image sensors. However, according to external analysis, Samsung's move may cause storage out of stock to increase prices. Samsung's executives made this decision in addition to quantifying prices and boosting the profits of DRAM. At the same time, it also further grabbed the market share of COMS image sensors and strived to fight for the leader SONY.
 
As for another DRAM memory supplier, Micron’s power outage at the Zhongli plant in Taiwan in December has caused fluctuations in DRAM memory, especially in server DRAM. In addition, after SK Hynix acquired Intel’s NANDFlash division and spent US$9 billion, it is estimated that it will not be able to expand the production of DRAM memory.
 
In this regard, TrendForce's Semiconductor Research Office said that the continuous transfer of memory capacity has not stopped since the beginning of 2020. Therefore, most of today's quotations have included such variables, and prices are not expected to respond immediately. However, due to the current lack of foundry capacity due to such actions, continuous fermentation in the memory with both foundry and DRAM businesses has caused the transfer of related DRAM processes to continue, making niche DRAM Supply continues to decrease. Moreover, because the shortage of foundry capacity cannot be satisfactorily improved in 2021, this situation cannot be eased for the time being. Therefore, whether there will be subsequent price increases in the future must be observed in the future.