Today’s Highlights

1. NAND Flash prices have surged across the board

2. Negotiations for NAND capacity startup in 2027 are scheduled

3. Samsung plans to expand DRAM capacity

4. SK Hynix raises target price

5. Phison launches new PCIe 5.0 enterprise SSD products

01

NAND Flash Prices Surge Across the Board

Following a strong increase of over 60% in the latest DRAM contract prices, the upward trend in the memory market has rapidly spread to the NAND Flash sector.

This week, Flash wafer prices have been raised again, with some categories seeing weekly increases of up to 38.5%, reflecting a sharp tightening of the current market supply-demand relationship.

Currently, NAND Flash manufacturers are exhibiting a pattern of “alternating price increases and sustained price hikes,” with expectations of double-digit quarterly growth in prices by the first quarter of 2026.

As manufacturers raise product prices, memory module manufacturers will also benefit simultaneously.

According to market quotes, the price increases for major NAND Flash categories are as follows: 1Tb QLC flash memory price increased by 25% to $12.5; 1Tb TLC flash memory price increased by 23.8% to $13; 512Gb TLC flash memory saw the highest increase of 38.5% to $9; and 256Gb TLC flash memory price increased by 14.6% to $5.5.

Institutions indicate that this round of NAND Flash price increases corresponds with the previous DRAM price hikes, indicating that manufacturers are very cautious in their capacity expansion strategies.

With AI accelerating the demand for eSSD and data center storage, the NAND Flash industry has entered a state of supply shortage.

02

Negotiations for NAND Capacity Startup in 2027 Scheduled

Driven by AI, the demand for storage is surging, and the storage market is facing a supply-demand imbalance.

Industry insiders reveal that storage manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Kioxia are negotiating supply agreements for 2027 with several large tech companies.

Due to limited NAND supply leading to sold-out capacities and a continued upward price trend, related companies have rarely initiated contract negotiations for 2027 ahead of time.

With eSSD at the core of AI data centers, the demand for NAND flash continues to grow, while the overall storage industry faces limited capacity.

Large tech companies expanding data centers have proactively initiated supply negotiations for 2027 to secure sources.

After finalizing contracts for next year, suppliers are extending agreement periods to 2-3 quarters.

03

Samsung Plans to Expand DRAM Capacity

Samsung Electronics plans to increase the monthly production capacity of its 10nm-class sixth-generation 1C DRAM to 200,000 wafers by the end of next year, significantly higher than the current capacity.

Samsung Electronics will first achieve a monthly production of 60,000 wafers of 1C DRAM in the fourth quarter, with an additional 80,000 wafers of monthly capacity added by the second quarter of next year; by the fourth quarter of next year, a further increase of 60,000 wafers will be made.

The final monthly capacity could reach 200,000 wafers.

The core purpose of Samsung Electronics’ capacity expansion is to seize the next-generation DRAM market opportunity in advance.

After the expansion, the monthly production capacity of 1C DRAM will account for one-third of the overall DRAM monthly capacity of 650,000 to 700,000 wafers.

This scale exceeds the additional 130,000 wafers of DRAM capacity added during the peak period in 2022.

04

SK Hynix Raises Target Price

KB Securities predicts that by 2027, the DRAM market will be restructured into a supply-side dominant pattern, and storage demand will enter a prosperous period, raising SK Hynix’s target stock price.

Maintaining a “buy” rating, the target stock price has been raised by 19% to 870,000 KRW.

KB Securities cites two reasons.

First, by 2027, the DRAM market will shift to a supply-side dominance, enhancing SK Hynix’s pricing power in HBM and general DRAM.

Second, storage demand is entering another prosperous period, the first in 30 years since the internet became popular in 1995, which is expected to directly benefit from subsequent increases in memory prices.

The future imbalance between DRAM supply and demand is expected to last at least two years, with SK Hynix’s fourth-quarter performance forecasted to be revenue of 28.1 trillion KRW and operating profit of 15.1 trillion KRW.

This will refresh historical performance records, with average expected values exceeding market estimates.

It is also predicted that next year’s operating profit will reach 81 trillion KRW, with net profit reaching 70 trillion KRW.

SK Securities further points out that SK Hynix maintains a monopolistic supply position in all AI memory fields, including HBM, high-capacity server DRAM, and eSSD, with no competitors.

It is speculated that SK Hynix’s stock price could reach 1,150,000 KRW, with a market capitalization potentially reaching 840 trillion KRW.

05

Phison Launches New PCIe 5.0 Enterprise SSD Products

Phison Electronics announced at the SC25 conference the launch of two new enterprise-grade PCIe 5.0 SSDs, Pascari X201/D201.

They also showcased the aiDAPTIV+ memory expansion AI inference acceleration solution suitable for integrated graphics platforms.

Both new products have identical key parameters, featuring maximum sequential read and write speeds of 14.5GB/s and 12GB/s, maximum random read and write speeds of 3300K IOPS and 1050K IOPS, and include two durability configurations of 1DWPD and 3DWPD.

Pascari X201 is designed to accelerate data-intensive workloads, with a capacity of up to 30.72TB, supporting U.2/E3.S form factors.

Pascari D201 provides density-optimized performance for cloud and object storage clusters, with a capacity of up to 15.36TB, supporting E1.S form factors.

Regarding the aiDAPTIV+iGPU solution, Phison claims that the memory expansion technology can provide up to 25 times performance improvement in common AI agent applications, reducing program response time from 73 seconds to 4 seconds in specific cases.

END

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