News

posted on 29 July 2008 10:20

NAND flash supplier SanDisk has had an ugly quarter and planning price cuts that could be copied across the industry.

Taiwan-based DigiTimes reports sources suggesting that there could be NAND price cuts across the industry as it copies SanDisk in cutting prices to raise sales and clear inventory. SanDisk says the industry is over-supplied and it may want to try and force a consolidation of suppliers, rather like the UK's RyanAir budget airline cutting prices at a time of rising fuel costs in an attempt to force competitors to exit the industry.

The industry is transitioning to multi-level cell (MLC) flash and needs to extend write cycle endurance. There are several suppliers with longer-term ambitions to develop a DRAM+NAND combined replacement, such as Numonyx with its Phase Change memory (PCM), Toshiba and other suppliers with Magnetic RAM (MRAM), and Hynix with STT-RAM .

These suppliers have hugely expensive Fab investments and won't exit the flash memory industry readily. They are all hoping they can pass through the current NAND/NOR slough of despond and emerge into their particular version of the Elysian fields beyond.

Unhelpful price cuts en route are part of the price they have to pay.

^{[Martin Edwards, news writer.]}