Looking into the SSD market conditions in the second quarter, in the 64/72-storey 3D production capacity increase, but the demand-side growth is still weak, SSD will still slightly oversupply, DRAMeXchange expects that the second quarter mainstream capacity contract price will continue to decline.
CHEN Chen pointed out that DRAMeXchange research associate pointed out that last year's SSD prices soared, PC OEMs in the second half of 2017 SSD purchases than planned, making the average NB SSD loading rate of only 45% in 2017, lower than originally expected. SSD this year After the price reversal, the NB SSD loading rate will exceed the 50% mark. In addition, the decline in the SSD contract price will also drive the SSD mainstream capacity of the PC OEM market to 256GB. As for the 512GB specification, the price is still due to this year. It is difficult to touch the sweet spot level and it is estimated that it will not become mainstream until 2019 to 2020.
Broader platform support and cost reduction, PCIe SSD penetration rate is expected to increase rapidly
From the interface development trend of NB SSD, although the performance of PCIe SSD is much better than that of SATA III SSD, the overall price/performance ratio is not as good as that of SATA III SSD. As a result, penetration rate in 2017 is lower than expected, penetration rate is only 30%, and SATA III is still Last year, the mainstream specifications of the Client SSD market. However, PCIe SSD interface is more widely supported on Intel CPU platforms this year, the cost of matured 3D-SSD technology has been driven down, and SSD control chip plants have gradually launched more cost-effective solutions. DRAMeXchange expects , 2018 PCIe SSD penetration has the opportunity to quickly increase, is expected to challenge the 50% level.
In addition, to observe the progress of 3D-SSD products, SK Hynix, WD and Toshiba camps, Micron, and Intel’s 64/72-layer SSD new products have started to increase in volume in the first quarter of this year. In the 2018 Client SSD market, 3D- The proportion of TLC architecture has an opportunity to exceed the 70% level. What is worth noting in the future is that the original NAND Flash factory is currently developing 3D-QLC Flash technology with larger single-capacity and more cost-competitive technology. It is expected to be officially launched as late as the second half of 2018. Into the mass production phase. Once this technology is mature, the SSD will be upgraded to a higher level, and the speed of replacing HDD will increase.
As for the 3D Xpoint SSD products launched by Intel, it started to ship to the PC OEM market last year, and launched 280/480GB capacity new products in the channel market. However, in the case of low cost performance, it can only be used in high-end business or Is e-commerce PC market sales, whether the future penetration rate can be improved, it still depends on whether Intel's pricing strategy has begun to turn.