Thursday, March 6, 2008

NAND Flash Capex - Full Steam Ahead!


Despite the current oversupply environment and the heavy price drops this quarter (Intel reported ASP declines of 53%), NAND flash manufacturers are maintaining aggressive capex plans. Samsung's ramp of its Austin facility and Hynix's ramp of M11 will offset some of the retirement of 200mm NAND capacity from both companies.

IMFT has maximized its capacity at Manassas and Lehi and will ramp its Singapore fab with maximum capacity of 60k wpm starting in Q3/08. Toshiba/SanDisk's Fab3 reached its full capacity of 150k wpm in September 2007 with Fab4 volume ramp started in December. Fab4 is a massive fab with maximum capacity of 210k wpm.
Powerchip Semiconductor is currently building two fabs P4 and P5 dedicated to the manufacture of NAND flash. These fabs are not expected to ramp in volume until the 50nm generation in 2009.

Spansion as well as foundry partners TSMC and SMIC capex figures includes fungible capacity that may be used to manufacture Mirrorbit NOR.

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