NAND Flash growth to surpass 130pc in 2008

TAIPEI, TAIWAN: According to a recent study from DRAMeXchange, the demand trend is positive by foreseeing the end product shipments status. NAND Flash demand bit growth is likely to surpass 130 percent YoY this year with shipments of the four major applications of NAND Flash, handset, MP3/PMP, digital camera and USB Flash drive (UFD), all set to pick up further this year.

DRAMeXchange estimates that the shipment trend of the aforementioned applications to be: handset to grow by 10 percent YoY to 1.23bn, with over half of the shipped handsets to equip with external memory card slot; digital camera shipments to grow by over 14 percent YoY to 130mn; UFD to grow by 25 percent YoY to 170mn and MP3/PMP to grow by 20 percent YoY to 200mn, with about 85 percent of these devices to adopt NAND Flash as the chief storage media.

Where demand for NAND Flash is promising, suppliers keep expanding at the same time. Supply bit growth is expected to be 130-140 percent this year. Most suppliers are likely to advance their production 5x nm-class process node with capacity breakdown in 5x nm-class process node expected to surpass 60 percent this year.

Apple will continue exert a strong influence over the price trend. Prices are likely to change proportionally with the amount it procures. DRAMeXchange expects tight supply in 3Q is still likely, as Apple usually starts increasing its procurement amount in 3Q to feed Thanksgiving and Christmas demand.

Note that we also observe low-cost PC and SSD as the other factors determining the market equilibrium. "Whether low-cost PC, such as Asustek’s Eee PC, could sustain its buoyant sales as observed in 4Q07; and whether SSD in SATA and SATA II interfaces will see more penetration at major NB vendors, play vital roles. If demand from these two applications sus.stains strongly, a relatively stable pricing environment is likely as opposed to the previous two years," said DRAMeXchange analyst.