It’s a funny old world. Someone was chatting to me yesterday saying that Micron was lucky to have its CMOS sensor business, which is a lot more protectable than its NAND flash and DRAM businesses.
Then, today, it turns out that Micron’s sensor business is up for sale, and Samsung and Nokia are interested in buying it.
With sensors becoming a really big deal nowadays, boosted by the iPhone's extensive use of them, sensor technology is a hot item. One can understand Nokia's and Samsung's interest.
However, the aggressive ramp up of Micron’s NAND fabs in the IM Flash joint venture with Intel, which saw Micron’s Q3 NAND shipments increase 75 per cent on Q2, must mean Micron is spending a shed-load of money to get into the most brutal market in the industry.
That formidable combo of Samsung and Toshiba, which collectively command 67 per cent of the worldwide NAND market, have recently announced a further cosying up together to share specs and patents on NAND.
If I was sitting amid the Idaho sagebrush, I’d be mighty worried about the impending head-on clash with the Samsung-Toshiba nexus.
Not to mention Hynix, which is shipping at twice the level of IM Flash, and growing its revenues faster than Micron.
I’d be worried, first because my partner, Intel, has a poor record, in recent years, of making money from flash memory, and second, because US analysts iSuppli reckon the NAND market’s growth streak will end in Q4.
There, in the sagebrush, I’d be thinking: thank goodness we’ve still got that solid, protectable, sensor business.
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