NOR flash prices will drop 14% this year
Buyer’s market seen continuing into 2009
By Jim Carbone -- Purchasing, 9/24/2008 3:56:00 PM
Electronics buyers can expect NOR flash memory prices to drop for the rest of this year, bringing the full-year price decline to 14%. Upshot: The average NOR flash memory chip price will be $1.72 this year, down from about $2.03 in 2007. In 2009, the price is expected to be around $1.60.
“Right now, we are in oversupply,” says YG Han, vice president of segment marketing at SST in Sunnyvale, Calif., a fabless flash memory supplier that provides NOR for a wide variety of electronics equipment. “It’s been a buyer’s market for three years.” He believes prices will continue to fall although there will be a transition to higher density devices which usually have higher prices than previous generation densities.
“There is tremendous pressure on prices because of excess capacity and better efficiencies in manufacturing,” says Brian Matas, vice president of research for IC Insights in Scottsdale, Ariz.
The price decline will occur although unit shipments will rise by about 4% and bit shipments will increase 17% on 2008. NOR flash is used in a variety of equipment, such as cell phones, computers, MP3 players, video game consoles, set top boxes and other code storage devices. Overall, falling prices mean that the global NOR flash memory market will drop about 10% from $7.7 billion in 2007 to $7 billion in 2008. Price erosion will continue in 2009, albeit at a slower rate, and the NOR market will fall to about $6.8 billion.
See also: Spansion’s flash fab ramping up
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