Cypress to Merge with Spansion

NOR flash and SRAM revenues are in decline, but MCUs are growing(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 quarter of 2015.  The purchase price is estimated at $1.6 billion.

Cypress points out that it is the leading producer of SRAMs, and that Spansion is the leading NOR flash provider.

One striking feature of this transaction is the Continue reading “Cypress to Merge with Spansion”

New NAND Player: Macronix

Macronix NAND FlashMacronix, a company known for its leadership in mask ROMs and low-density NOR flash has just entered the NAND flash market.  This adds a new player to a very small pool of competitors: Samsung, Toshiba, SanDisk, Hynix, Intel, and Micron.

The company’s first NAND products are SLC chips of two densities: 512Mb and 1Gb.  Compare this to the offerings of the market’s other participants which range up to 256Gb.  Spot price tracker InSpectrum doesn’t even track pricing of densities below 4Gb!

There still seems to be a good market for these low-density parts: According to WSTS  Continue reading “New NAND Player: Macronix”