Q5 Interview - Roland Schimmelbauer, Toshiba Electronics

Roland Schimmelbauer, VP of European sales & marketing for Toshiba Electronics Europe, talks to Electronics Weekly about the main business opportunities in 2009, how Toshiba is addressing power efficiency, a key technology for the next 12 months, and consolidation in the Japanese semiconductor industry...

How have changes in the market affected Toshiba's position as one of the world's biggest NAND flash suppliers? 
 
Market conditions saw 2008 NAND prices drop and demand and supply profiles change. As a result we adjusted our NAND production during the first half of 2009. For some months now prices have been increasing again due to production adjustment by major manufacturers, including Toshiba, and demand is now better matched to supply, but it remains difficult to forecast when over-supply will end.

Production quantity is, however, only one side of the story. The other side is cost. Toshiba's take on that is to introduce leading edge production technology at an early time, and to stay ahead of our competitors. We were, for example, the first to mass-produce high-quality MLC NANDs at high yield. Currently Toshiba is leading the industry in applying 43nm process technology to 32GB products, which stack eight 32Gb NAND flash memory chips. In April this year we further reinforced our leadership when we presented samples of the world's first 32nm generation, 32-gigabit (Gb) single chips (4 gigabytes (GB)). Toshiba will start mass production of 32Gb NAND flash memories in July 2009.
 
Power efficiency is the industry watch-word right now. What are the main tools and capabilities a chip maker such as Toshiba has to address this in its products?
 
Power efficiency is getting more and more important across all market segments and chip makers can address this by innovating at process and package levels as well as providing alternatives to conventional technologies. Take cars as an example - the fuel-consuming servo steering is increasingly being replaced by EPS (electric power steering).

For this chip makers are using new process, packaging and bonding techniques to deliver MOSFETs that combine extremely low RDS(ON) and high switching speeds with the ability to operate in the automotive environment. For notebook and netbook PCs the development of NAND based SSDs can reduce power consumption by 2/3 when compared to HDD alternatives, at the same time as enabling more rugged designs.

More visible to the end consumer are developments in the lighting segment, where traditional lighting technologies are now being replaced by high-brightness, white LEDs. In this case chip makers can deliver optimum efficiency through both the LED design and innovation in areas such as highly integrated LED drivers.
 
What are the main business opportunities in 2009 in the European semiconductor market?
 
Clearly semiconductor sales have suffered from the global economic crisis that has impacted on all market segments. At a global level the EDP segment still offers significant opportunities, the largest resulting from the trend to smaller netbooks where traditional HDDs are being replaced with SSDs.

In Europe there are many opportunities resulting from the replacement of conventional incandescent, fluorescent and halogen lighting with LEDs. And, while the automotive semiconductor market is currently facing significant challenges, the longer term outlook is positive as semiconductor content per car is increasing for all sub-segments including safety, engine management, control and infotainment applications. The trend to hybrid and battery-powered cars is offering additional opportunities. As a result, automotive opportunities exist for a broad range of semiconductor devices including processors, MOSFETs, IGBTs, and LEDs.

If you had to name one key technology which will impact the business over the next 12 months what would it be?

SSD for sure. With the advantages in speed, weight, power consumption and ruggedness, SSDs are great solutions for professional notebooks and netbooks.
 
Has the NEC Electronics/Renesas merger, expected this summer, set a trend for further consolidation in the Japanese semiconductor industry and if so how will it affect Toshiba?
 
One merger doesn't necessarily mean a trend and there are alternatives when it comes to achieving economies of scale. Joint ventures for production and development, for example, offer the flexibility to choose the right partner for each different technology.

In Toshiba's case we already cooperate with NEC and IBM for 28nm low-power process technology development; we cooperate with SanDisk for NAND production and we have an agreement with Fujitsu on the transfer of their hard disk drive (HDD) business to a new company called Toshiba Storage Device Corporation (TSDC), where Toshiba Corp plans to keep the majority share.

Toshiba is accelerating comprehensive restructuring of the semiconductor business under "Action Programs to Improve Profitability" announced in January this year.

See also: Q5 - Interviews with electronics industry leaders
Read all the Electronics Weekly Q5 interviews. From ARM's chairman, Sir Robin Saxby, to touchscreen technology firm Zytronic's MD, Mark Cambridge, the business leaders share their particular insights on the UK electronics industry.