The price of the benchmark chip, 1Gb (gigabit) DDR2 (double data rate, second generation) DRAM chips that run at 667-megahertz, rose 25.6 percent to US$1.07 each, DRAMeXchange Technology reported at 11:00 am in Taipei.

runs an online chip clearinghouse.

Qimonda filed for bankruptcy protection in Germany just before the Lunar New Year holiday after it failed to secure needed cash to continue operations. The company continues to operate, but two partners in Taiwan, Inotera Memories and Winbond Electronics, have refused to ship any more chips to the company because Qimonda already owes them both millions of dollars.

The two Taiwanese companies accounted for around half of Qimonda's DRAM output through technology and supply agreements.

Last week, DRAM prices climbed as much as 16 percent in North America and Europe in response to the company's bankruptcy filing, but Asian traders were already on holiday. The world's main spot market for DRAM chips is in Asia due to the huge number of desktop and laptop computers that are assembled in the region, mainly at factories in China.