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The Father of Flash Memory

At the Flash Memory Summit in August I had the honor of awarding Fujio Masuoka, the inventor of both NAND and NOR flash, the Flash Memory Summit Lifetime Achievement Award. This award is given to the giants of the flash memory industry to acknowledge their contributions.

Dr. Masuoka first described NOR flash at the 1984 International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco, and NAND flash at the same venue in 1987. His paper “A new flash EEPROM cell using triple polysilicon technology” introduced a technology that is now used everywhere.

The award has also been given to Intel’s Flash team who brought the first commercial products to the market, and SanDisk co-founder Eli Harari, for devising a way to manufacture a floating gate.

David Schwaderer made a video of the presentation and posted it HERE. Have a watch!

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 the seventh straight month of semiconductor growth, the first such run-up since 2010.

This quote, by SIA CEO Brian Toohey really caught The Memory Guy’s eye: “Sales of memory products have increased sharply compared to last year and continue to be a major driver of industry growth.”

A lot has been happening to drive this increase in memory revenues: The recent SK hynix fire increased DRAM prices, but Continue reading “SIA: Memories Drive Record Semi Revenues”

Micron NAND Reaches 16nm

Micron has announced that it is sampling a new 128Gb NAND flash chip based upon a 16nm process, with production slated for the fourth quarter. To The Memory Guy’s knowledge this is the tightest process available.

The company, with its partner Intel, gained a lead with its 20nm process generation through its use of a Hi-k tunnel dielectric, a new material that replaces more conventional silicon dioxide layer with a new material (Micron won’t say what) that yields the same capacitance with a thinner layer. This has become very important with today’s tight processes because of issues of inter-cell interference.

Other NAND makers are migrating to Continue reading “Micron NAND Reaches 16nm”

SanDisk & Toshiba to Add NAND Capacity

SanDisk today announced that its joint venture with Toshiba would begin construction in August of its Fab 5 “phase two” shell. Completion of this Yokkaichi, Japan wafer fabrication facility is slated for mid-2014.

SanDisk expects to use this facility for technology transitions of existing Yokkaichi wafer capacity. The new clean room will provide the space for the additional equipment necessary to transition existing wafer capacity to next-generation 2D NAND technologies and to early generations of 3D NAND technology. In this way it will perform support for Fab 3, Fab 4 and phase one of Fab 5.

This is consistent with the JV’s use of Continue reading “SanDisk & Toshiba to Add NAND Capacity”

SanDisk & Toshiba Move to Next Process Node

SanDisk and Toshiba, in separate announcements, both today disclosed their next-generation process technology.

The companies introduced their new “1y” processing node that, according to SanDisk, produces 19nm x 19.5nm cell, versus the earlier “19nm” process (or “1x”) that used a 19nm x 26nm cell.

The graphic for this post (click to enlarge) was presented during SanDisk’s May 5th Analyst Day and compares the 24nm process to the 19 x 26nm process, moving to the 19 x 19nm process, and eventually to “1z” which neither company is yet revealing. After the 1z process SanDisk believes Continue reading “SanDisk & Toshiba Move to Next Process Node”

A Retrospect of Toshiba’s NAND Production Cut

There are some who still believe that Toshiba made good on its announcement to cut NAND flash production by 30%. Let’s take a close look to see if that really happened.

Readers may recall that Toshiba stated last July that it would immediately cut NAND flash production by 30%. At the time NAND was selling below cost for spot prices as low as 31 cents/GB.

The Memory Guy questioned both the wisdom of the move and its authenticity in a blog post at that time, since this level of cut would reduce Toshiba’s market share while increasing its Continue reading “A Retrospect of Toshiba’s NAND Production Cut”

Why Most NAND Rankings Ignore SanDisk

Every so often I run into someone who asks about the discrepancy between various analysts’ NAND market share rankings and SanDisk’s shipments. After all, SanDisk is a leading producer of flash memory and has captive manufacture through its joint venture with Toshiba. Yet, most market share rankings leave SanDisk out.

What’s going on here?

Owing to a long-standing convention SanDisk’s NAND chips aren’t counted since they are sold as “Systems” (with a controller.) The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) set that rule up, and most analysts Continue reading “Why Most NAND Rankings Ignore SanDisk”

Is there a NAND Shortage? Not quite.

The trade press has recently carried reports of a NAND shortage which The Memory Guy finds to be very premature. True, NAND prices are not at their lowest point – today NAND can be found for 38 cents per gigabyte, up from a low of 31 cents in July. But does this constitute a shortage? No, not really.

One of the key indicators of a shortage is a crossover between spot and contract pricing – during an oversupply spot pricing is lower than contract pricing since OEMs and suppliers both place excess product on the market and compete on price. During a shortage the opposite is true – suppliers don’t have any Continue reading “Is there a NAND Shortage? Not quite.”

Samsung Revenues Reflect NAND Price Increase

NAND prices have increased since July, and that appears to have helped Samsung to increase its memory revenues in the past quarter. That comes as a welcome change!

As this post’s graphic illustrates the company has has seen downward-trending memory revenues for five of the past six quarters, but Q2 revenues increased by ten percent. Interestingly enough, the last quarter-to-quarter increase was a miniscule 0.3% one in Q2 of 2011. It looks as if growth tends to regularly occur in Samsung’s second quarter.

Last quarter’s revenue growth helps to debunk rumors that Samsung was Continue reading “Samsung Revenues Reflect NAND Price Increase”

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 improve the overall balance between supply and demand.” Toshiba’s release implies that this move is expected to improve prices, which have dropped as low as $0.31/GB recently.

By common measures of market share, which typically leave out SanDisk (for reasons too complex to discuss here) Toshiba holds a share of roughly 30% of the NAND flash market. By cutting its output by 30% Toshiba would be reducing overall NAND supply by 10%. If we were to include SanDisk, then that percentage would decrease to about 7.5%. Either one of these is significantly more than Continue reading “Toshiba to Cut NAND Production by 30%”