The company said that while economic uncertainties are likely to dampen demand to some degree in the first half of the year, it expects things to recover later in the year. This will be driven by resumed installations at datacenters and the adoption of DDR5 for new CPUs., when it forecast a"bit demand rebound" for the second half of its fiscal 2023. However, Micron is cutting capital investment in production for next year by more than 30 percent to about $8 billion.
Kioxia, formerly Toshiba Memory, is also lowering capital investment and production output in response to market conditions. The consensus among the memory chipmakers is that this drop-off in demand is just part of the market cycle, and that they will be able to ramp up production and investment once it picks up. How soon this will come is a different matter, with Samsung and Micron expecting an uptick next year, but some analysts believe it will take longer.
Earlier this month, Gartner's vice president for semiconductors and electronics Richard Gordon told us that total 2023 semiconductor growth is likely to be negative. "We are already seeing pull-backs in announced Capex as semi companies try to throttle back output," he said."This will slow the addition of new fab capacity as vendors try to align it to a recovery in the market in beginning in 2024 and accelerating in 2025." ®