With falling demand for GDDR, Japan-based memory company Elpida has reportedly substantially reduced orders to Taiwan's Winbond Electronics, according to industry sources. Winbond indicated that it has lowered GDDR production due to lower-than-expected profits, but said it is still cooperating with Elpida on GDDR.

Since the bankruptcy of major GDDR maker Qimonda, Elpida had stepped up efforts in the GDDR segment, acquiring related technology from Qimonda and began sourcing from Winbond.

However, as a PC replacement trend never took shape in 2010 and the popularity of tablet PCs, demand for GDDR has cooled off.

According to industry reports, Elpida had terminated most GDDR orders to Winbond since the end of 2010 and was planning to produce 100% in-house. Winbond indicated that compared to mobile RAM, profits for GDDR were indeed disappointing in 2010. It had expected GDDR orders to rise steadily but that was not the case with a weak end-use market. However, Elpida remains a GDDR client, Winbond noted.

Elpida originally placed GDDR orders of 10,000 units per month with Winbond, but the Taiwan-based company only accepted half of the orders as capacity was already booked up for NOR flash, SDRAM and mobile RAM in the first half of 2010.