re: But Spansion can play it both ways (including own MCM with ORNAND as NAND from SMIC), even though the press releases didn't advertise flash from SMIC to go to these applications...
Yep, so far ORNAND wasn't up to the task. With ORNAND2 it's probable. Design wins for new technology aren't always that fast though...
Other news shows Spansion may need to raise cash:
Spansion, the memory-chipmaker that hasn't reported a profit since it was spun off from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in 2005, may need to raise capital to stay in business, according to Cowen & Co. LLC analyst Daniel Berenbaum.
Spansion's interest-coverage ratio, or earnings divided by interest expense, was negative 2.44 at the end of the second quarter. The lower the ratio, the less the company may have available to make interest payments.
Spansion had $240 million cash at the end of the second quarter, down 28 percent from three months earlier. It has $2.4 billion in liabilities, according to Bloomberg data. Spokeswoman Holly Burkhart declined to comment.
bloomberg.com
Rumors especially based on a bit of truth do hurt nowadays.
Anyway, AMD dropped as much as Spansion yesterday, while Micron that posted discouraging results declined much less. Here's a quote that explains the AMD drop:
Excluding the charges, Micron would have lost 27 cents a share -- 3 cents worse than the average analyst expectation.
Micron had sales of $1.45 billion in the quarter, compared to $1.44 billion at this time last year, and short of the $1.54 billion expected by Wall Street, according to Thomson Reuters.
While Micron's chip revenue has been under pressure because of the falling prices for memory chips, the company noted that DRAM bit growth -- the amount of bits of memory shipped -- actually declined 5% in the recently ended quarter.
That's a particularly unwelcome trend, since it suggests that demand is declining even as prices come down.
Many PC makers have already taken advantage of rock-bottom memory prices and stocked up in recent months, says a report by DRAM exchange, a Taiwanese market research firm. And with expectations for near-term PC demand worsening, PC makers see little pressing need to order more memory.
Micron executives said that demand "dropped off" in the last month.
As it seeks to persevere through the current downturn, Micron said Wednesday that it would cut senior executive salaries by 20%, and trimmed its planned capital expenditures for the new fiscal year.
Instead of spending $1.5 billion to $2 billion boosting its production capacity, Micron said it will spend between $1 billion and $1.3 billion. The move follows similar cap-ex reductions by other memory makers in recent weeks.
thestreet.com
Regards,
Rink |
