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March 07, 2013

Industry Sees Less Need for NAND Flash Memory Given Current Smartphones and Tablets

There are many benefits coming from the increasing popularity of tablets and smartphones. But there are some drawbacks, too. For instance, there is a less need for NAND Flash memory given the design of the new products – which translates to less demand for the product in the marketplace.

The lower demand is leading to some “serious concern” among companies which supply NAND memory, according to a recent IHS iSuppli report. Their demand for NAND is important. Tablets and handsets represent 36 percent of the current demand as demonstrated in NAND memory shipments, IHS said.

“Memory capacity in phones, for instance, is down to 12.8 gigabytes (GB) on average in the first half this year, compared to 13.2 GB the same time a year ago,” IHS said in the report. “Such a decline is in stark contrast to the nearly threefold increase that took place between the first half of 2011 and 2012, when flash memory in phones surged from 4.6 GB to 13.2 GB.”

It is interesting that the overall demand for smartphones increased the amount of NAND flash memory used for cell phones, news reports said. But overall the amount of memory usage has flattened, news reports add.

“Tablets tell a similar story of dwindling memory density. From the first half of 2011 to the same time a year later, flash memory loading in tablets dipped 25 percent from 32.1 GB to 24.0 GB on average,” the report adds. “The fall so far this year during the first half is even greater, down 42 percent as tablet memory skids to 14.0 GB.”

In addition, increased popularity of the cloud has impacted consumer use of the microSD memory card — another source of revenue for NAND flash makers.

“The increasing prevalence of cloud and streaming services has reduced the requirement for large amounts of NAND flash in smartphones and tablets,” Ryan Chien, an IHS analyst, was quoted by EFY Times. “Mobile device brands increasingly are offering their own application ecosystems and online storage benefits that perform the same functions as onboard NAND flash. With mobile platforms a leading growth driver for the NAND industry, this trend represents a major cause of concern for flash memory makers.”

IHS has predicted, too, that less need for NAND among handsets and tablets is leading manufacturers to look for demand elsewhere. Micron Technology and SanDisk of California are trying to find NAND flash demand in the solid state drive market. Solid-state disks (SSDs) used in ultrabooks and laptop PCs may help a bit, according to IHS, but PC Magazine cautions the market there is not particularly strong.

To see an example of what is going on in the market, Micron Technology recently introduced the industry's smallest 128-gigabit (GB) NAND flash memory device, MobilityTechzone reported. The 128GB device is over 25 percent smaller than the capacity of Micron's 20nm multi-level-cell NAND device.




Edited by Brooke Neuman


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