Push is on to higher density DRAM along with higher performance.
From Electronic News--April 5, 1999
Toshiba Pulling Plug on 64Mb DRAM
Will cut production by 90 percent
By Peter Brown
Irvine, Calif.-- Toshiba Corp., has made a strategic decision to cut 64-meg DRAM production by 90 percent by the fourth quarter of this year.
The company felt it could no longer be "battered by the price pressures of 64 megabit DRAM and expect to be profitable," according to Stephen Marlow, vice president of the memory business unit at Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc.
The move further demonstrates the turmoil in the DRAM market, which has been racked with price pressures, tensions over investments for Rambus memory, and a shrinking supplier base due to consolidation and divestiture.
"You can only allow your margins to continue to diminish for so long before you have to look at another reasonable economic business model," said Marlow. If this does continue, says Marlow, further consolidation will occur leaving "the DRAM future in the hands of only a half dozen or so suppliers."
The plan calls for Toshiba to reduce its production down to 1 million pieces per month by December of 1999 for 64Mb parts. Toshiba will then accelerate the output of 128 megabit 133MHz SDRAM, double data rate (DDR) DRAM and direct Rambus DRAM (D-RDRAM). It will also focus its efforts toward higher density DRAMs, into 256-megabit and beyond. In addition, Toshiba plans to transition all of its DRAM parts to a 0.20-micron process by the end of the year, meaning 100 percent of Toshiba's DRAM production will be at the 0.20 geometry by the year 2000.
"It makes sense with the Micron/TI merger and soon the Hyundai/LG combo," said Steve Cullen, principle analyst at Cahners In-Stat Group, a market research firm based in Scottsdale, Ariz. "A company with only 5 or 6 percent market share won't be able to do everything so they will have to focus," According to In-Stat, Toshiba was ninth last year in overall market share, comprising 5.9 percent of the total DRAM market. Cullen forecasts the company share will be a little less than that this year.
Cullen also doesn't see a cutback in the demand for 64 megabit parts. This year he forecasts 64 meg parts will rise to 1.7 billion units shipped, amounting to $14.5 billion. In the year 2000, DRAM shipments of 64 megabit parts will reach 2.2 billion resulting in $15.4 billion in revenue worldwide, he predicts.
"Companies will be bringing out 128 and 256-megabit parts but that does not mean 64 meg parts are thrown to the curb," noted Cullen. The sub-$1,000 PC market is an area that will benefit greatly from 64 megabit parts as will some mid range PCs and other non-PC applications--such as consumer electronics and handheld devices--where DRAM is needed but at a low price.
"We are not losing all connection to the desktop PC," said Jamie Stitt, business development manager for DRAM products at Toshiba's memory business unit. "but we are certainly cutting back on that area of the DRAM market." Toshiba has also abandoned its hope of using 64 (72) megabit D-RDRAMs for next generation PCs due to the recent delay in the Camino chipset--designed to help interface with the high bandwidth memory and essential to future PC OEMs who want to use Rambus memory technology. The company instead will be focusing its efforts on the transition from current PC-100 SDRAMs to PC-133 SDRAMs and to 128 and 256-megabit DDR and D-RDRAMs. (See story, page 1). The company last week introduced a family of 128 megabit DDR SDRAMs to add to its high performance line of memory devices.
Meanwhile, cutbacks in 16 meg DRAM production are producing shortages in that density, said Sherry Garber, analyst with Semico Research, Phoenix. Those parts are used in disk drives, graphics and communications products, she said. Oki, which still supplies 16 meg parts, "is making a killing" as a result of the shortage, Garber said.
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