Samsung’s suspension of its semiconductor plant in Austin due to power outage will increase prices of solid-state drives (SSD), market research firm TrendForce says.
Client SSD prices will increase between 3 to 8% in the second quarter compared to the first quarter, the firm said. Prices of enterprise SSDs will increase from 0 to 5% in the same time period, TrendForce said.
The price increase is caused by a shortage in controller chips. Prices of controller chips have been rising since 2020 due to shortage in production capacities of TSMC and UMC. In December, TrendForce has said it expected a price increase of 15 to 20% in controller chips in the first quarter of 2020.
SSD companies receive their supply of controller chips from suppliers such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Python and Silicon Motion. The latter two manufactures chips through foundry companies like TSMC.
Austin plant handles production of Samsung’s own chips __ 10% of the capacity is used to manufacture controller chips used in Samsung-branded SSDs.
Most controller ICs made at Samsung Austin are for client SSDs shipped to PC OEMs. In particular, among Samsung’s client SSD offerings, products based on 128 layer NAND flash are expected to be directly affected by the incident, TrendForce said. SSD manufacturers will be forced to extend their lead time for SSD orders, which will cause them to increase prices in the second quarter, the firm said.