GLG News by Mr. Jim Handy, Director
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
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Samsung and Numonyx See PRAM-PCM as Next Winner
October 3, 2009
Samsung upbeat about PRAM market | www.digitimes.com
Flash memory will hit the end of its life in the next few years.Samsung and Numonyx are betting that phase-change memory, PRAM or PCM, will fill the void to become flash's successor.Other companies, Spansion, Macronix, SST, Sharp, and Hynix, have not disclosed their plans, but Intel, Toshiba, and Micron have outlined different plans.
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The NOR Flash Market is Headed for Big Changes
June 10, 2009
SST Strengthens Management Team by Appointing Bertrand F. Cambou as President | www.marketwatch.com
With Spansion moving away from their Wireless business they will have to grow by taking share from other embedded companies like SST (Silicon Storage Technology, Inc), Winbond, Macronix, ISSI, and others. This will also impact long-time rival Numonyx, the merger of Intel's and STmicroelectronics' NOR flash businesses, and even Samsung.
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Samsung-SanDisk Deal Good for Both Companies
June 10, 2009
SanDisk, Samsung ink patent cross license, flash supply agreements amidst memory industry turmoil | www.edn.com
SanDisk has renewed its license agreement with Samsung on terms that are more agreeable to Samsung although less profitable for SanDisk. The royalty rate is still higher than the industry norm, though, which has negative implications to companies who are not yet SanDisk licensees, like Micron and Hynix and Kingston technology, as well as for existing licensees, whose rates could creep up when renewal time comes around. This would include Intel, Toshiba, Numonyx, and the many card companies like STEC, SMART Modular, Sanmina-SCI Viking, and many more.
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Time is Ripe for Some Consolidation
March 6, 2009
Where chip industry is headed today | www.mercurynews.com
The stage is set for consolidation in the semiconductor industry. The firms that will be hit hardest with this are those that make commodity products in low-growth markets. In particular this will impact Samsung, Hynix, Micron, Qimonda, Elpida, Powerchip, and Nanya.
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Seminal Changes Afoot for the NOR Flash Business?
March 6, 2009
Spansion Files for Bankruptcy Protection in the U.S. | www.bloomberg.com
Spansion's bankruptcy filing could indicate the beginning of the end of the high-density NOR flash market. This would force changes in design methodology at cell phone makers Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, HTC, Bird, and many others, and breed new chipset designs at companies like TI and Qualcomm. Numonyx, the NOR spin-off formed out of Intel and ST could find that its products' market would decline due to a lack of a viable alternate source.
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How SanDisk's x4 fits into the NAND flash Equation
February 19, 2009
SanDisk Announces Worlds First HIgh Perforomance 4 bit per cell X4 Flah memory Technology | finance.yahoo.com
The NAND flash market will continue to see strong price declines, driven by a combination of Moore's law and new technologies like x4. This makes it difficult to find profits for any NAND chip maker that does not have a competing technology. The move has strong implications for Toshiba, Samsung, Hynix, Intel, Micron, Numonyx, and even Spansion.
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Get Ready for DRAM Consolidation
February 19, 2009
Winbond open to DRAM consolidation, says company executive | www.digitimes.com
DRAM vendors must consolidate. This is driven by basic economics. The consolidation will result in fewer vendors, starting with the elimination of those at the bottom of the market share ranking. Suppliers Samsung, Hynix, Micron, Elpida, Powerchip, ProMos, Nanya, Infineon, and others will be impacted.
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Infineon Looking Better, but Still Ripe for Takeover
February 19, 2009
Infineon Gains After Boosting Savings Target, Reducing Spending | www.bloomberg.com
Infineon has been looking for a suitor for over a year, and this latest news will not change that. The consolidation that is overdue in the DRAM market is driven by basic economics. Consolidation will result in fewer vendors, starting with the elimination of those at the bottom of the market share ranking. Suppliers Samsung, Hynix, Micron, Elpida, Powerchip, ProMos, Nanya, Infineon, and others will be impacted.
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HDD Makers are Under No Immediate Threat
February 19, 2009
Solid State Hard Drives Go Mainstream | www.thestreet.com
Flash SSDs are poised to replace HDDs in the notebook PC market provided users want them to. If that happens it will be a big plus for SSD makers like SanDisk, Samsung, Toshiba, Intel, Micron, STEC, SuperTalent, SMART Modular, and many other firms. It will meanwhile serve to harm Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi, another part of Toshiba, and Fujitsu. The PC OEMs: Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus, and many others will be observers of this battle, as they can switch from one side to the other easily without any harm to themselves.
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Intel/Hitachi SSD Deal Good for Intel, Good for Hitachi
December 17, 2008
Hitachi, Intel to Co-Design High-End SSDs | www.pcmag.com
With the recent announcement that Hitachi will be making Fibre Channel and SAS implementations of Intel's proprietary SSD architecture both companies should profit. This will pose a threat to companies like Seagate, Western Digital (WD), and Fujitsu who do not have such an SSD and rely on sales of enterprise HDDs, as well as to less sizeable SSD firms like STEC, SMART Modular, and others.
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Flash Not Poised to Kill off HDDs, Not Now, Not Ever
December 17, 2008
Flash Makers Will Need $1 Trillion To Take Over the Disk Drive Storage Market, Skeptic Says | techpulse360.com
HDD makers need not fear that SSDs will ruin their business. It's not time to head for the hills. The basic economics of both HDD and SSD will prevent this from happening anytime in the foreseeable future, yet SSDs will do well in their own right when they are matched with appropriate markets.
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Samsung's Shrewd Play to Manage Royalty Costs
November 4, 2008
Samsung Drops Bid to Buy SanDisk | www.businessweek.com
What is going on here? Samsung is working in their shareholders' best interests, as is SanDisk. In the end, the separation between these two interests is thwarting meaningful progress in negotiations. Objective Analysis, in its Alerts, has outlined the impact this should have on each company. We do not anticipate the consummation of this deal before the memory market returns to profitability in mid-2009. See: http://www.Objective-Analysis/Reports
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Large Sclae Solar is Nothing New
June 13, 2008
Calif. solar power test begins — in Israeli desert | www.msnbc.msn.com
Large scale solar energy plants are not new, but can be useful if fossil fuels maintain high prices. They can help put a cap on high energy costs, but since they are large-scale projects they take years to install. The impact of these on photovoltaics should be minimal.
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DRAMs Regularly Drag Semi Sales Down
April 15, 2008
DRAM Price Drops Hide Global Demand for Chips | www.toptechnews.com
The semiconductor market (excluding NAND and DRAM) tends to behave relatively well, with mild soft spots and less remarkable highs. Add the schizophrenia endemic to memories and the whole complexion of the market changes to one of wild mood swings. Objective Analysis finds that the semiconductor market without DRAM and NAND is a more sedate haven for investors, but those with a flair for adventure may well choose to try and out-guess the DRAM and NAND markets to make a killing overnight.
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Today's Semiconductor Slump Will end in late 2009
April 15, 2008
Gartner: Chip industry in 'indefinite' slowdown | www.computerworld.com
The semiconductor industry is undergoing a very predictable down cycle based upon excessive capital spending in 2006. As it always does, demand will catch up to this spending in 2009, and the market should see another upswing similar to those in the past. In the mean time, all semiconductor companies will suffer from low earnings, and will cut capital spending. These cuts will result in a late 2009 shortage that should last through 2010. This shortage will drive higher prices and improved profitability.
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Rumor Mill Indicates SSDs Closely Watched
April 11, 2008
Dell denies report of solid-state drive failures | www.computerworld.com
Solid-State Drives (SSDs) may be ahead of their time, but they are certainly generating a lot of press! Companies who don't want to get left in the dust need both to understand this technology, and to understand why their customers would or would not like to purchase it.
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SanDisk/Toshiba Manufacturing Agreement Improves Manufacturing Flexibility
February 28, 2008
SanDisk, Toshiba sign MOU for new fab | www.bizjournals.com
SanDisk has done very well with its captive chip supply to work a business model that is, for the most part, vertically integrated. As the company has grown, they are now looking at improvements on this model that will further enhance both their cost structure and their flexibility. The new model should help SanDisk keep their advantageous cost structure while providing more flexibility than prior agreements have done.
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The Semiconductor Cycle - A Factor Beyond Any Company's Control
February 25, 2008
Rumor: Micron-Nanya JV in the works | www.eetasia.com
The semiconductor cycle is here to stay. It is driven by factors beyond the control of any single semiconductor maker. Industry consolidation will occur, but it will be driven by the spiralling cost of manufacturing plants. Industry cycles will not abate by the consilidation of the market unless only one supplier remains.
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New PRAM a Boon for Intel's & ST's "Numonyx" Spin-Off
February 8, 2008
A Memory Breakthrough (MIT Technology Review) | www.technologyreview.com
An obscure new semiconductor memory technology called PRAM (or PCM) promises to eventually change the nature of the flash memory market. Companies who are on top of PRAM, mainly Intel, STMicroelectronics (and their Numponyx spin-off) and Samsung are well positioned to capture this technology's success when it develops. Energy Conversion Devices, the owner of the phase-change technology, will also benefit from royalties over the long term. Spansion's not talking, so we don't know how this will play out for them, but BAE, Elpida, Hynix, and Qimonda are licensees, so they are likely to move in a similar direction.
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Is NAND Pushing DRAM out of the PC?
November 20, 2007
SanDisk Offers New Flash-Based Accelerator to Speed Up System Performance in Consumer Laptops and PCs | www.sandisk.com
DRAM companies will see faltering growth. OEMs with NAND strategies will prosper while others will lag behind. NAND companies are poised to tap into PC market growth.
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