Powerchip Technology, Nanya Technology, Inotera Memories and ProMOS Technologies, four Taiwan-based DRAM makers, may suffer a total net loss of more than NT$80 billion (US$2.67 billion) in 2011, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

Powerchip, Nanya and Inotera together recorded total net loss of about NT$57 billion for the first three quarter of 2011, the sources pointed out.

Since short supply of hard disk drives (HDDs) arising from the impact of flooding in Thailand has diminished shipments of PCs, especially desktop models, demand for PC-use DRAM has drastically decreased and therefore spot market prices for DRAM have further fallen to a low level of US$0.6 for 2Gb DDR3, the sources indicated.

The impact of HDD shortage on DRAM industry is expected to linger in the first quarter of 2012, the sources noted.