Macronix International, which ranks as the world's second-largest NOR flash supplier with a 19% share currently, aims to become the number one player in the sector with a 30% share within three years, said company chairman Miin Wu in a recent interview with Digitimes.

Wu disagrees with market speculation that NOR flash applications are likely to be replaced by NAND flash counterparts, and he believes that an industry consolidation is needed to address the oversupply issue that has haunted the industry for years.

Q: NOR flash has seen fierce price competition for years, so what are the prospects for the industry?

A: Although many people have said that most NOR flash-based applications are likely to be replaced by NAND flash, I think only part of high-end NOR flash applications are likely to be replaced by SLC (single-level cell) NAND flash chips, and demand for mid- and entry-level NOR flash chips will continue to grow year-by-year.

I also disagree to the speculations that the applications for NOR flash are diminishing. On the contrary, the NOR flash applications have been expanding, and so has the demand. The general perception that the NOR flash market is dwindling is because the ASP (average selling price) of NOR flash chips has been declining.

Additionally, demand for NOR flash from the IoT (Internet of Things) segment is also promising, and any devices with smart functionalities will require more IC chips. Therefore, I think that NOR flash can create a lot of new applications.

Q: What should be done in order to address the oversupply issue that has plagued the industry for years?

A: The oversupply in the NOR flash industry is not caused by slacking demand. In fact, we have seen demand from the end-device market continue growing. So I think that the industry has to undergo a certain degree of consolidation to improve its structure toward more healthy pricing.

Q: What is your medium- and long-term goals in the NOR flash industry?

A: Macronix ranked as the second largest NOR flash supplier globally with a 19% share in the second quarter of 2014 compared to 15% for all of 2013, according to data from iSuppli. However, our market share in the low-density NOR flash has reached 30%, and the ratio for the high-density models is also rising. We aim to reach a 30% share for the entire NOR flash market within three years.

In recent years, Taiwan-based NOR flash suppliers have turned their attention to the emerging telematics market. Macronix has an advantage over other vendors due to our strong and reliable supply capacity. We expect our shipments to the sector to grow significantly in 2015 as we have landed orders for a number of new models. Prices for devices shipped to the sector have been steady, which should be instrumental to our medium- and long-term operations.

With regard to manufacturing processes, 75nm process products currently account for 32% of our total NOR flash products. We have delivered 55nm products to clients for verification and expect the 55nm process to become a growth driver in 2015.

Q: What are your product roadmaps for the newly developed NAND flash product line?

A: We began volume production of NAND flash chips in the first half of 2014, built using an in-house developed 36nm process at our 12-inch fab. NAND flash products accounted for 4-5% of our total sales in the third quarter of 2014. Meanwhile, we have delivered 2Gb NAND flash chips designed for networking devices and STBs for verifications and shipped samples of 4Gb chips to clients for testing.

However, our production of NAND flash chips will be limited in 2015 due to insufficient production capacity at our 12-inch fab, and NAND flash products will account for about 10% of our total sales in the year.

Our long-term goal is to develop SLC NAND flash chips for the telematics market as the products for this market have higher value-added and are also hard to be replaced due to high production barriers.

Strategically, we will not engage in production of MLC NAND flash chips to compete with top players, such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology as well as high-density chips for mainstream SSD applications. Instead, we will focus on those NAND flash chips that are complementary to our NOR flash to help clients to develop new application markets.

By: DocMemory
Copyright © 2023 CST, Inc. All Rights Reserved