The faltering NAND market has shown slight signs of recovery, with flash chip prices recording a significant price increase.

Prices of mainstream multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash and the single-level cell (SLC) segment registered a sequential gain of 1-16 per cent during the second half of December, while 8GB and 16GB chips posted a 10 and 16 per cent increase. The rising prices have been attributed to significant production cuts implemented by a number of industry heavyweights.

For example, Toshiba recently announced a 30 per cent reduction of NAND flash memory production. The firm also confirmed plans to halt operations at its factory in Yokkaichi, western Japan. Two chip-production lines utilising 300mm wafers will close for 13 days and a pair of 200mm lines are slated to stop production for four days. In addition, the corporation's 300mm lines in Oita that manufacture components for Sony's PlayStation 3 will cease to operate for two days in January. The Kitakyushu facility, which produces semiconductors for cars and flat-panel TVs, will shut its doors for a total of 25 days.

However, it should be noted that state of the troubled memory sector has not discouraged the development of new memory units. Indeed, Micron and Sun have jointly designed an improved single-level cell (SLC) NAND for enterprise applications.

"Enterprise NAND is a high-endurance SLC NAND device that offers an endurance rate of one million write/erase cycles. That's ten times the 100,000-cycle average for SLC," Kevin Kilbuck, Micron director of NAND market development told IT Examiner. "Our Enterprise NAND is optimised for intensive storage applications where device life is the top priority - applications like high transaction data servers (banking) or enterprise SSDs."

Numonyx has also unveiled a new line of NAND flash memory, including 32GB multi-level cell NAND, 32GB eMMC and 8GB microSD products. The NAND memory, fabricated using advanced 41nm process technology, will provide consumers with a significant amount of storage space for a variety of multimedia applications.

"The NAND segment represents a significant growth opportunity for Numonyx," Mark Miller, a Numonyx spokesperson, told IT Examiner. "The new devices solidify Numonyx as a true NAND memory supplier for wireless, embedded and storage applications. The addition of the new NAND products to our leading NOR portfolio helps establish Numonyx as a complete memory subsystem provider."

Miller also commented on the state of the ailing memory market.

"There is little doubt that this is a very difficult time for everyone in the memory industry. However, despite the current difficulties in the NAND segment today, Numonyx believes its ability to deliver complete memory subsystem solutions – NOR, NAND, RAM multi-chip packages, software and firmware elements – offer a distinct competitive advantage over traditional NAND providers. We also believe that investments and innovations made today will put us in the best possible position for future recovery." X

Check Out
Digi Times
IT Examiner