on Thursday (Jan. 12), the Korean chip giant projected a “slight” oversupply for the NAND flash market worldwide in the first quarter of 2006, followed by shortages in the last three quarters of this year, according to a report from investment banking firm American Technology Research Inc.
As reported, Samsung posted its first profit gain in five quarters for the fourth period of 2005, but the company also cut its capital spending in 2006. The cuts are good and bad news for fab-tool makers, analysts say.
In the conference call, Samsung (Seoul) said it is projecting 17 percent growth in terms of NAND bits in the first quarter, but the oversupply is apparently due to seasonal factors.
And after several quarters of delays, the company also said it has shipped 20 percent of its NAND wafers, based on multi-level cell (MLC) technology, according to the report. That figure is projected to increase by 40 percent in mid-2006, according to the report.
Samsung had been a major proponent of single-level cell (SLC) flash technology, but the company has been ramping up MLC. Toshiba Corp. has been shipping MLC technology for years.
The NAND-based flash memory segment is the fastest growing “major” semiconductor market in history, according to
Semico Research Corp.
For some time, Samsung has also been shipping its OneNAND products — at a price point that is equal to its “raw” NAND-based flash-memory devices, according to the report. OneNAND is a single-chip controller that combines a high-speed data read function of NOR flash with the data storage density of NAND flash.
Samsung’s pricing strategy impacts the bottom line of its rival in the arena: M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers Ltd., according to the report. Samsung is shipping 3 million OneNAND units per month to top tier handset makers.
