Can the memory makers put their businesses on a sounder footing for next year? Following massive losses in DRAM and NAND as companies single-mindedly pursued market share increases at the expense of everything else, there are signs that the industry is moving to a more sensible approach.
Elpida and Powerchip announced cut-backs in DRAM production last week. Powerchip said it would cut production by 10-15 per cent, Elpida by 10 per cent.
This week, according to DigiTimes of Taiwan, Micron Technology of Idaho is going to cut the range of its projected 2009 capex from between $1.5bn to $$2bn down to between $750m to $1.5bn.
Even Toshiba, which has been spending heavily on capex to overtake Samsung with the intention of becoming the No.1 NAND player, is said to have reduced its output of NAND in the last month. Toshiba, with 27.5 per cent market share, has a long way to go to catch Samsung's 42.3 per cent share.
iSuppli says that Samsung is the only profitable player in the NAND business. Intel remains in fifth position in the iSuppli flash rankings table with its joint venture partner in the flash business, Micron Technology, in fourth position. Numonyx and Renesas hold the 6th and seventh slots. Hynix is third.
iSuppli says the NAND market actually shrank Q2 on Q1 and its predicting zero growth for the NAND market this year.
In the DRAM business, the players in order of size of revenues are, according to iSuppli: Samsung, Hynix, Elpida, Micron, Qimonda, Powerchip,Nanya, Promos, Etron and Winbond.
The DRAM price is down to $1.50 for a 1Gbit chip, according to DRAMeXchange, and the price of a 16Gbit MLC NAND is at $2.70, though an SLC 16Gbit is $13.20 and a 32Gbit NAND is $7.10.
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