NOR Flash's Time to Shine?
By Dan Bloom
May 31, 2006
NOR flash memory has often been the shunned stepsister to the more popular NAND variety. But the tide may be turning, putting NOR in the spotlight at last.
Don't worry about what those acronyms stand for. All you need to know is that demand for NAND flash has grown strongly over the past few years, thanks to its increasing use in USB flash drives, memory cards for digital cameras, and in MP3 players like the Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPod nano. While NAND flash is great as a nonvolatile storage medium -- your music and pictures don't disappear from it when the power is turned off -- NOR flash is used to store the executable code that powers digital devices. While demand for NOR flash has grown over time, it's grown much more slowly than demand for NAND flash.
NOR flash producers faced tough times in 2004 and 2005, and as a result, the big suppliers -- Spansion (Nasdaq: SPSN), Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), and ST Microelectronics -- avoided making large investments to expand capacity. Instead, they focused on improving their technology. As a result, the supply/demand situation for NOR flash may tip enough that NOR flash shortages could materialize this year, according to electronics industry research firm iSuppli...
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