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Elpida Finally Makes Statement
For months rumors have abounded regarding Elpida’s viability and plans the company has to overcome its current financial woes. Although the company has been questioned about advanced payments and...
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Hynix and Spansion Join Forces
SK Hynix and Spansion have announced a strategic NAND alliance under which Hynix will serve as a foundry for low-density SLC NAND chips made for Spansion using Hynix’ advanced processing nodes. These...
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How Cheap is Flash?
The Memory Guy was a little surprised to see the advertisement in this post’s graphic. It was from an April 8 newspaper ad for Fry’s Electronics. It’s a little early to see NAND selling for this...
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Why DRAMs are Like Steel
Over lunch today I had a conversation with an alum of McKinsey Consulting who remarked that the DRAM business behaved in a way that was similar to the McKinsey Steel Model. For those unfamiliar with...
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DensBits – Making TLC Act Like MLC
DensBits, an Israeli start-up, has introduced a new technology and a new product today. The company’s new eMMC controller, the DB3610, embodies DensBits’ “Memory Modem” technology, which is a blend of...
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Toshiba to Cut NAND Production by 30%
In a surprise announcement Toshiba has said that it will immediately cut NAND flash production by approximately 30%. The company explains that this is being done “to reduce inventory in the market and...
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Adesto Acquires Atmel’s Serial NOR Business
It’s not often that a small private firm acquires a part of a larger public firm, but that’s what happened today with Atmel and Adesto. Adesto, a manufacturer of alternative memory technology, has...
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Does the ‘Windows Bump’ Really Exist?
DRAM manufacturers often refer to “The Windows Bump” – a phenomenon that is believed to occur after every release of a new version of the Windows operating system. According to this theory DRAM demand...
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Samsung Announces 3D NAND Production
Samsung has announced production of its 3D NAND technology. This approach, first introduced by Toshiba in 2007, allows NAND flash makers to achieve more bits per chip by building NAND strings, which...
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SIA: Memories Drive Record Semi Revenues
The SIA yesterday released the WSTS semiconductor sales data for September. Monthly revenues reached a record $27 billion driving third-quarter revenues to their own record of $81 billion. This was...
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Is the DRAM Market Entering a Shortage?
Long-term clients of mine, even those dating back to my decade at Dataquest in the 1990s, are familiar with the concept that spot prices behave differently during a shortage. When there is too much...
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Is Apple Losing Dollars to Save a Few Cents?
An article in a recent issue of Business Korea posits that Apple may be having trouble stemming from the company’s adoption of TLC flash in it’s new iPhone 6. The article states: considering that...
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Cypress to Merge with Spansion
(Excerpted from an Objective Analysis Alert issued 1 December 2014.) In a move touted as a merger of equals, Cypress will acquire Spansion in an all-stock transaction slated to close in the second...
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Semiconductor Market Ends Year on a High Note
The Semiconductor Industry Association this week announced the year-end World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) revenues for 2014. Worldwide sales grew 9.9% to reach a record total of $335.8...
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DRAM Prices Down, But Not So Bad
For the past ten months DRAM prices have been undergoing a steady slide. Is the market in a crisis? Not really! Today’s low spot price of $4.30/GB puts us on a par with February 2013, a full two...
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Is Micron Being Acquired?
The following is an excerpt of an Objective Analysis Alert sent to our clients 7/13/15. A July 13 Wall Street Journal article disclosed that China’s state-owned Tsinghua Unigroup has bid to buy Micron...
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Goodbye, Andy Grove
It was sad to hear today of the passing of Andy Grove, Intel co-founder and former president. Although I did not know him well, Andy was a part of my brief 1½-year stint at Intel in the early 1980s....
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Toshiba Restructuring: New 3D Fab Coming
Beleaguered Toshiba finally unveiled its restructuring plan on Friday. The plan aims to return the company to profitability and growth through management accountability. A lot of the presentation...
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XMC Breaks Ground for 3D NAND Fab
China foundry XMC has broken ground for its new 3D NAND flash fab, the country’s first China-owned 3D NAND flash facility. Plans for this fab were publicly disclosed over a year ago. Simon Yang,...
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Putting DRAM Prices in Perspective
For almost two years there has been a lot of worry about DRAM spot prices. This post’s graphic plots the lowest weekly spot price per gigabyte for the cheapest DRAM, regardless of density, on a...
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