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Toshiba pushes up microSD card prices

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CIOL Bureau
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KYUSHU, JAPAN: A power outage on July 20 at Toshiba's Oita Operations semiconductor plant in Kyushu, Japan, is having its impact on the microSD cards market of late.

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According to reports in the Japanese financial media, microSD cards have rallied by almost 10 per cent in recent times on reduced supply from Toshiba. According to DRAMeXchange statistics, average quotes for 1GB and 2GB microSD cards increased by 4.97 per cent and 4.43 per cent, respectively, to close at US$4.33 and US$4.60 on July 28.

Memory card makers have been quoted saying that the brief power outage was caused by a lightning strike. Though the Toshiba Oita Operations semiconductor plant resumed normal operations on July 23, parts of controllers used in memory cards were damaged beyond repair, the reports said.

With the power outage already sending feelers of a bad market situation, Toshiba had then and there placed orders for controllers and other key components with Taiwan-based IC designers and backend houses. The effort aimed at sailing through and staying afloat Toshiba had to resort to this decision, opined industry sources.

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