December 2018 – The Memory Guy

The Objective Analysis 2019 Chip Forecast

It’s the time of year for Objective Analysis to release its 2019 forecast. What does next year promise?

Every year VLSI Research invites us to produce a video of our semiconductor revenue forecast for the coming year. Since we have been doing this for a number of years there are now twelve videos on the VLSI Research “WeSRCH” website. The latest video can be viewed by clicking on this link.

We’re proud of our record of semiconductor forecasts. While other market research companies dislike discussing their past successes and failures, Objective Analysis puts all of our historical forecasts online in one simple table on our website’s Forecast Accuracy page. A careful review reveals a stellar track record, with the exception of 2009 and 2015, both of which were related to major macroeconomic events that even leading world economists failed to predict (i.e. the 2008 Global Economic Collapse and the combined China currency devaluation and oil price collapse in 2014.)

Another important factor in the Objective Analysis forecast methodology is that we only update the forecast once a year. Our clients dislike being told one thing at the beginning of the year and something completely different at year-end. If the forecast is Continue reading “The Objective Analysis 2019 Chip Forecast”

Emerging Memories Today: Process Equipment Requirements

Something that distinguishes the Emerging Memory report that Tom Coughlin and I recently published is the depth in which we cover in the field. This is not measured in pages, but in the topics that we cover. For example, this blog post, excerpted from the report, covers the changes in tooling that will be necessary to allow a standard CMOS wafer fabrication plant (a “fab”) to produce an emerging memory technology, and the impact that this is likely to have on the market for semiconductor tools.

All of the emerging memory technologies covered in the Memory Guy’s previous post share certain things in common. One of them is that they are built between metal layers, rather than in the silicon CMOS substrate itself (with the possible exception of the hafnium oxide FRAM.)

This means that the tooling required for any of these technologies will bear a strong resemblance to that used by any of the others. For the most part these tools will be used for deposition and etch. The lithography requirements will be satisfied by the tools used to pattern the metal layers.

The process flow in this figure sheds some light on the steps that Continue reading “Emerging Memories Today: Process Equipment Requirements”

Intel’s Losses Amid Others’ Gains

Why has Intel’s NVM Solutions Group (NSG), the owner of the company’s NAND flash, SSD, and 3D XPoint businesses, been losing money during a time when all other manufacturers are more profitable than they have been in years?

This is a question that certain investors have put to The Memory Guy for the past year or so, and it deserves some explanation.

This post’s graphic compares Intel’s NSG net profit margins to the margins published by other memory companies. (Click on it to see the whole chart.) This isn’t a completely clean comparison since the data for Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron includes DRAM, and recent quarters are missing for Western Digital (SanDisk) and Toshiba since these companies have stopped sharing comparable financials, but it still serves as a relatively clear indication that Intel’s NSG (blue) is losing money while all other companies are quite profitable.

Something seems dreadfully Continue reading “Intel’s Losses Amid Others’ Gains”

Emerging Memories Today: The Technologies: MRAM, ReRAM, PCM/XPoint, FRAM, etc.

Here in the US we use an extremely odd expression. If there are multiple varieties of an item we commonly say: “There are more of them than you can shake a stick at!” This is a very lengthy way to say: “numerous.” (I don’t believe that ANYONE understands how that expression became a part of our vernacular!) Although The Memory Guy isn’t normally seen shaking a stick, I find it an apt way to describe the numerous new memory technologies that are being pioneered today. There are certainly lots of them!

This post is intended to be very high-level technical description of today’s leading emerging memory technologies. These are excerpts of the in-depth descriptions that can be found in our recently-released report: Emerging Memories Poised to Explode.

PCM: Also known as PRAM, Phase-Change Memory technology is based upon a material that can be either amorphous or crystalline at normal ambient temperatures. The crystalline state has a low resistance and the amorphous state has a high resistance. This is controlled by melting the bit cell by passing a current though it and then allowing it to cool at different rates.

In chemistry and physics, anything with a Continue reading “Emerging Memories Today: The Technologies: MRAM, ReRAM, PCM/XPoint, FRAM, etc.”