Hynix JV HNSL to encounter blackout incident at Wuxi, China fab; SSD to rise as star product in storage space
(looks like memory segment continues to pull out of the mud;
me thinks coupled with strong CPU the SIA might up the forecast during the next bi annual forecast; amazing that a huge wafer fab complex like Wuxi does not have its own backup power).
Published May.20, 2008
Hynix JV HNSL to encounter blackout incident at Wuxi, China fab
A power outage accident took place in HNSL (Hynix Numonyx Semiconductor Ltd.) due to a problem in the power transmission facilities in the Wuxi Export Processing Zone. The power shut down has lasted near 16 hours from 11:30am on May 19th to 2:30am on May 20th. Hynix has confirmed the accident and believe the overall impact to the whole operations should not be severe as the emergence power supply system was activated instantly. The real impact is still under evaluation.
Currently, HNSL runs two fabs in Wuxi, one is 8-inch fab and the other is 12-inch fab. The 8-inch fab houses a monthly capacity of 50,000 wafers with production being focused on consumer DRAM, DDR and SDRAM. The 12-inch fab mainly focuses on commodity DRAM production. Despite concrete amount of affected capacity is still under evaluation, history shows that any power suspension for over two hours could affect an amount of output equivalent to two weeks' capacity at worst or one week's capacity in average.
DRAM contract price to up by another 5% in 2HMay; 1GB module leads appreciation since March
DRAM contract price negotiation for 2HMay is still underway. As DRAM makers have successfully raised their quotes by 10% in 1HMay, some buyers have already requested to freeze the quotes for the entire May. Where for those buyers, who are still having price discussions, channel checks show that most DRAM makers tend to propose a 5-10% hike.
Price of the mainstream DDR2 1GB module has appreciated by ~20% (from US$17.50 to US$21) after experiencing a price correction during early March to April. While DDR2 1GB part takes the lead in terms of price hike, price of 2GB module also posted a 10% appreciation (from US$40 in early March to the present US$43) in the same period.
DRAMeXchange attributes the price rebound during seasonal downturn to structural change in supply. Since Hynix only has its supply bit growth reached 5% in 1Q08, and Qimonda even posts a negative shipment bit growth of 9% in the same period, those buyers who bring forward their pre-stock procurement after seeing a guaranteed upward price trend, thus spurs demand.
DDR2 eTT 1Gb spot price slips by 5% last week; DDR2 eTT 1 Gb to stay above US$2 level
Spot price of DDR2 eTT 1Gb again dropped below US$2 on May 15 after being stable for two weeks. During the week May 13-19, price of DDR2 eTT 512Mb down 2.9% at US$1.02 and price of 1Gb down 4.9% at US$1.96. In the branded chip segment, price of DDR2 667MHz 512Mb down 1.0% at US$1.04 and price of 1Gb down 4.0% at US$2.18.
Transaction was relatively weak last week, with price of DDR2 eTT 1Gb once dropped to US$1.96 level. Yet, the downward trend is short-lived as most industry players have reached a consensus that US$2 should be the price bottom. Some industry players have observed that back-to-school demand has emerged. As DRAM makers are more disciplined over expansion and capex, a healthier price trend thus foreseeable.
SSD to rise as star product in storage space
The consistent ASP drop of NAND Flash that further suppresses end product ASPs down, highlights the rising role of SSD (solid state disk) among all other major NAND Flash applications such as memory card, UFD (USB Flash drive) and MP3/PMP. Whereas a stable demand growth for SSD in enterprise and industrial applications that built on the performance leap of SSD over HDD, is also drawing more attention about its penetration beyond PC.
Key applications of SSD could be classified into PC and non-PC segments, with the later segment could be further broken down as military, industrial and cooperate applications. SSD breakdown in terms of application could be classified into server, DT and NB.
SSD that is used in enterprises is mainly designed for the purpose of server storage. It gains a rising role because of better performance in some scenarios and power-efficient advantage. A storage device that is powered with NAND Flash provides a better performance than HDD when there is an unexpected influx of data, which results in better performance in data execution on both read and write.
A more power efficient performance also outgrows SSD from other storage media in server. Despite enterprises may have to spend more cost setting up a SSD-based server in the beginning, the uphill energy cost trend implies a considerable discount to power consumption after installation.
It is a fact that MLC NAND Flash has its inborn defects in terms of data read cycles, but this defect does not necessarily affect its performance in server storage space because most companies do not write off their stored data agian. Thus, NAND Flash has raised as an optimized storage media for server aside from NB and low-cost PC.
From the perspectives of MIS, the three key criteria for choosing an optimized storage solution is: 1, how to shrink server size in limited space; 2, how to save more energy cost and; 3, how to minimize hidden cost to lower heat. The advent of SSD here meets all the aforementioned concerns.
MTRON and SAIN InfoCom from Korea, STEC, Adtron, Intel and SanDisk from the US, are the key vendors for producing SSD and storage applications currently. Of which, MTRON divides its SSD into PC, cooperate and niche applications in attempt to address demand from different customer groups with customized specifications.
In the PC segment, MTRON has introduced its Mtron SSD MOBI series, which include MSD 300 and MSD 1000, with the former adopts SLC NAND Flash and the later MLC NAND Flash. Both SSDs support SATA 1.0 and ATA 7 interfaces with a storage size of 64GB. The company has also introduced MSD Express Card. This card can be easily replaced PCMICIA slot as it has built-in controller. A better data execution performance is also guaranteed.
In the cooperate lineup, MTRON has introduced its Mtron SSD Pro series for use in media server web server, streaming server and hybrid server. The SATA 1.0 interface SSD houses a maximum memory density of 64GB. Whereas for the niche segment, MTRON has introduced the Mtron SSD XTM for environments of high temperature difference and shock. This SSD supports both SATA 1.0 and ATA 7 interface with a maximum memory density of 64GB.
In addition to MTRON, many other vendors have designed respective SSD to address different requirements. For example, the ZEUS and MARCH series SSD from STEC support a wide array of interfaces such as ATA, SATA 1.0a and SATA II with maximum memory density of 256GB.
With the gradually falling price of NAND Flash, related SSD applications in industry and enterprise are more emphasized than before. Besides its applications in PC, widely-related applications in industry and enterprise have also been the sphere that worth watching for SSD future trend.
NAND Flash spot price recap, May 12-19
In the SLC segment, price of 1Gb dropped by 1.1% to US$1.77; 2Gb flat at US$2.74; 4Gb flat at US$3.73; 8Gb dropped by 3% to US$7 and 16Gb dropped by 2.9% to US$16.40. In the MLC segment, price of 4Gb dropped by 0.5% to US$1.93; 8Gb dropped by 0.9% to US$3.24; 16Gb dropped by 0.8% to US$5.04; 32Gb dropped by 1.5% to US$11.13 and 64Gb dropped by 1.2% to US$22.73.
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