Micron's 1Gbit DDR3 is being fabricated on a 78nm process ... with production slated for early 2008 ... Micron is capable of producing 2Gbit DDR3 any time before then [2008] ...
the 1.6GHz version, components will be only available when Micron transitions to next-generation DRAM production geometry, which is 68nm, and that production timeframe is 2009.
During the last transition, it was not until the price gap between the two generations of DRAM shrank to a 10-20% range that a meaningful transition took place. Kilbuck expects this price gap between DDR2 and DDR3 to probably occur in the second half of 2009. So, from the perspective of production, the volume of DDR3 will not surpass DDR2 until 2009. Micron estimates that its output share of DDR3 will be in the range of 5-10% in late 2007 and then climb to 20-25% in the second half of 2008.
Regarding the current trends in the DDR2 market, consumers are not really seeing a performance difference between DDR2-533 and DDR2-667 so prices have evened out between the two segments. Micron noted that 512MB DDR2-667 is dominating shipments at the moment but the company agrees with other major DRAM suppliers that expect 1GB of memory to be the mainstream memory density for systems by the end of the year, given that the price of DRAM is so low these days.
While memory module makers are still seeing two 1GB DIMMs as the mainstream for a 2GB configuration, due to the considerable price premium of 2GB DIMMs, Kilbuck said Micron's quotes for two 1GB DIMMs or one 2GB DIMM are very close, primarily because the modules that Micron produces are built using 1Gbit chips rather than 512Mbit components (*).
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