CHIP SHORTAGE STARTS TO HURT; MANUFACTURERS PASSING ALONG HIGHER RAM COSTS IN WAKE OF TAIWAN QUAKE.Byline: Cliff Edwards Cliff Edwards (14 June, 1895 - 17 July, 1971), also known as "Ukelele Ike", was an American singer and musician who enjoyed considerable popularity in the 1920s and early 1930s, specializing in jazzy renditions of pop standards and novelty tunes. Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Consumers expecting to see ever-lowering computer prices as they begin their holiday shopping may be in for a surprise. Manufacturers are beginning to pass on the higher costs of memory chips, known as RAM, to consumers, who have been seeking more and more powerful chips as they go after faster computers with the best graphics. Sixty-four megabytes of RAM, a typical amount of memory in a $1,000 computer, once sold for as low as $40. Now the same memory is retailing for about $100 and could reach $150 next month, analysts said Thursday. ``About 7 percent of the cost of desktop PCs is memory, and when manufacturers see that suddenly double, you can bet they're going to react,'' said Steve Cullen, principal memory analyst at In-Stat market research. ``Those days when (memory chip) prices were coming down, down, down are over.'' RAM is important to a computer because it stores information that a processor might need at another point, allowing a user and the computer to switch back and forth more rapidly between tasks for everything from screen-savers to spreadsheets to games. Even the fastest processors are slow at performing multiple tasks without adequate RAM. Supplies in the last several months have been constrained con·strain tr.v. con·strained, con·strain·ing, con·strains 1. To compel by physical, moral, or circumstantial force; oblige: felt constrained to object. See Synonyms at force. 2. for a variety of reasons. Manufacturers stopped or sharply reduced production in many factories in the Far East last year after a 3-1/2-year glut glut pronounced as rut, slut Vox populi An excess of a service or skilled labor in a particular area. See Physician glut. caused prices to fall to a record low, and new supplies of super-fast RAM chips (Random Access Memory chip) A memory chip. See dynamic RAM, static RAM, RAM and memory. with double the previous top speed have been slowed by glitches. The most recent blow to the industry came with the 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Taiwan last month that destroyed many factories and, in ones left standing, threw sophisticated machines out of calibration calibration /cal·i·bra·tion/ (kal?i-bra´shun) determination of the accuracy of an instrument, usually by measurement of its variation from a standard, to ascertain necessary correction factors. , said analyst Sherry Garber at Semico Research Corp. Taiwan produces 12 percent to 15 percent of the world's RAM chips. Manufacturers, meantime, have been competing in the cutthroat cut·throat n. 1. A murderer, especially one who cuts throats. 2. An unprincipled, ruthless person. 3. A cutthroat trout. adj. 1. Cruel; murderous. 2. industry by offering consumers computers with more and more memory at lower and lower prices. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: (color) A shopper looks at personal computers in Dallas, where prices are starting to rise. Jane Hwang/Associated Press |
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