Toshiba, the inventor of NAND flash memory, is aiming to overtake its licensee Samsung to become the largest NAND flash supplier, aided by the world's largest flash fab.
With its partner, SanDisk, Toshiba has started running wafers at a new fab which, it is planned, will be outputting 80,000 300mm wafers a month by the end of next year, and could be enlarged to run over 200,000 wafer a month.
Yokkaichi fab
The Yokkaichi fab is ramping up on a 56nm process, but by March next year it is planned to be running a 43nm flash process.
"The Yokkaichi plant is the most important flash memory factory on which our company is betting its future," said Atsutoshi Nishida, the president of Toshiba. Nishida added that the company aimed to overtake Samsung next year as the world's largest manufacturer of NAND flash.
According to the CEO of Toshiba's semiconductor division, Shozo Saito, the new fab will peak in production in April 2009 and another new fab will be required to start ramping up in 2009 to keep up with demand.
In Q3 Toshiba will fulfil only 75 per cent of customers' orders. In Q2, it was supplying 80 per cent of requirement.
Beaten to the market by Intel
Toshiba invented flash technology but was beaten to the market by Intel which produced the first flash chip based on Toshiba's invention. Later Toshiba licensed NAND flash technology to Samsung.
Currently Samsung supplies 45 per cent of the world flash market while Toshiba supplies only 28 per cent.
Whether Samsung pays Toshiba a royalty for its use of Toshiba's technology and, if so, how much, is a closely guarded secret.
Meanwhile Hynix, the world's third largest NAND flash supplier, has managed to package 24 16Gbit NAND flash chips in a package that is just 1.4mm thick, delivering a 40Gbyte multi-chip memory package.