As yet another sign of the impact of falling memory chip prices, IBM Japan will stop manufacturing Dynamic RAM (DRAM) memory chips for PCs, according to a report in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan's largest economic daily.
DRAMs are used for the main memory in all personal computers. IBM is scheduled to halt production of 4MB DRAMs at its Yasu plant in Shiga Prefecture by this summer, the report report.
IBM has been making DRAMs in Japan since 1983. The Yasu plant will shift production to higher-priced chips such as digital signal processors and graphics processors.
Memory chip prices have plummeted more than 30 percent since the beginning of the year.