Spot prices for NAND flash have started going up as the possible effects of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami began to impact markets.
Toshiba, with its partner SanDisk, supplies about half the world’s requirement for NAND flash and they make all their NAND chips in Japan.
The spot price of 16Gb which had been on a downward trend started to climb today and other flash chip configurations were following.
“Toshiba/SanDisk represent one third of Japan’s total IC output but half the world's NAND Flash production,” says Malcolm Penn, CEO of Future Horizons, adding: “a microsecond power supply glitch wiped out production at one of the Toshiba factories just before Christmas, a more serious interruption would bring the NAND market to its knees, especially as no-one holds inventory any more.”