NOR flash price erosion eases
Worldwide NOR flash memory revenue rose 6% in the second quarter as the rate of price declines slowed, according to researcher iSuppli. NOR flash revenue increased to $2.13 billion up from $2.01 billion in the first quarter. In addition, NOR revenue in the second quarter of 2006 was nearly 19% higher than during the same period in 2005.
By Staff -- Purchasing, 10/19/2006 2:00:00 AM
The demise of NOR flash memory may have been greatly exaggerated. Worldwide NOR flash memory revenue rose 6% in the second quarter, according to researcher iSuppli.
NOR flash revenue increased to $2.13 billion up from $2.01 billion in the first quarter. In addition, NOR revenue in the second quarter of 2006 was nearly 19% higher than during the same period in 2005.
Unit shipments of NOR flash in the second quarter of 2006 were 10% higher than in the first quarter and up 25% compared to the second quarter of 2005.
The NOR market was boosted by a slowing in the rate of price declines. The average price of a NOR device declined by 4% sequentially in the second quarter, compared to an 8% drop during the same period in 2005.
Also fueling the increase in revenue was the rising number of shipments of 64 megabit or higher, high-density devices. Those devices carry higher price tags than lower density parts.
“Unit shipments for higher density NOR flash chips increased by 139% year over year in the second quarter, indicating strong use of NOR not only in the memory's core market in mobile phones, but increasingly in consumer products like set-top boxes, digital televisions and automotive in-cabin electronics,” says Mark DeVoss, senior analyst, flash/SRAM/MCP for iSuppli.
In the second quarter, Spansion retained its lead in the global NOR flash market with sales of $655 million, up 16.5% from the first quarter, the highest sequential rate of increase among the top-five suppliers. Company NOR sales were up nearly 40% compared to the second quarter of 2005. Spansion's market share increased to 30.7%, up from 27.9% in the first quarter, helping it to pad its lead over rival Intel Corp. Intel remained in the number-two position with NOR revenues of $518 million, down 3.5% from $537 million in the first quarter.
STMicroelectronics held onto third place in the NOR market with revenue of $361 million, up more than 10% from $327 million in the first quarter, and a nearly 50% increase from $244 million in the second quarter of 2005.
Other companies contributing to the strong quarter include Samsung Electronics, Macronix International and Micron, all of which posted strong percentage increases in revenue compared to the first quarter.
The NOR market had been eclipsed in recent years by NAND flash memory which is used in a lot of consumer electronics equipment, says market researcher IC Insights. NOR flash is typically used for code storage in equipment while NAND is used for data storage. NOR is used by cell phone handset manufacturers because it provides fast reads, which is useful for pulling out data out of memory. However NOR writes data relatively slowly. NAND reads data slowly, but has fast write speeds which is needed in equipment such as digital cameras, MP3 audio players and other multimedia products.
Increasingly equipment such as cell phones and personal digital assistants use both kinds of flash memory. Some manufacturers have combined the two flash technologies. Two examples are Samsung's OneNAND devices and AMD/Spansion's ORAND chips.
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