David Sun, co-founder of Kingston Technology predicts, Smartphones will be key to spur demand for NAND flash in 2010, and will consume more chips than solid state drives (SSDs),

Today's popular smartphones now integrate 16GB and 32GB of NAND flash, said Sun. With more models increasing their NAND density, the demand is big enough to digest the industry's capacity despite concerns about slower SSD adoption in the PC segment, Sun indicated.

The outlook for smartphones currently, is similar to the PC market scenario during the early 1980s, when the sector was about to bear fruit, Sun said. Sun believes the market for smartphones has room to expand over the next 20-30 years, when Internet applications on the device become mature.

However, growing NAND flash demand for smartphones may disadvantage the market for SSDs, as both smartphone and SSD sectors demand huge NAND flash supplies to meet their potential demand, Sun commented.

SSDs still face the difficulty in increasing penetration in the PC market due to higher costs and less stability compared with hard-disk drives (HDD), according to Sun.

Major NAND flash chipmakers have stepped up efforts to shift to more advanced process geometries rather than expanding capacity.

As to DRAM chips, Sun sees no prospects for new capacity at present though many producers are scaling up their production. DRAM makers are now making profits on better market conditions, but have become more cautious about spending.

With the market emerging from its worst scenario, DRAM prices are unlikely to fall toward US$0.50 again, according to Sun. Sun said Kingston's inventory levels currently reach 4-6 weeks, consuming around 80-100 million DRAM chips per month.

Sun forecast Kingston's 2009 revenues are on track to remain similar to levels in 2008, when it generated around US$4 billion.

By: DocMemory
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