Micron warns of dram shortages and price hikes

Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said there is currently a serious shortage of dram to meet demand. He foresees rapid price increases and the shortages will continue this year, according to the CEO.

The Micron CEO expects high demand for dram in all markets this year: PC, data centers, mobile and automotive. He said this in a statement to the quarterly results, recorded by Seeking Alpha. The manufacturer already delivered record amounts of dram for PCs last quarter and took advantage of the high demand for laptops and Chromebooks due to working from home.

Micron says it has limited inventories, pointing to manufacturing problems at its memory factory in Taiwan last December. Early that month, a one-hour power outage occurred at Fab 11 near Taoyuan City. Later that month, an earthquake took place that, in addition to Fab 11, also forced Fab 16 to stop production.

Mehrotra further cites drought-induced water shortages in Taiwan, which reduced the amount of water available to the dram factories. “To counter the shortages, we are accelerating our efforts to conserve water and have secured alternative sources of water,” said the CEO. According to him, the water shortages are not impacting the dram output, but there is an ongoing situation that Micron will monitor in the coming months.

Micron Taoyuan, Taiwan. Source: Micron