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To: KeithDust2000 who wrote (4158)	9/24/2008 7:16:11 PM
From: bobs10	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4590

You/Jim carbone: Electronics buyers can expect NOR flash memory prices to drop for the rest of this year, bringing the full-year price decline to 14%. Upshot: The average NOR flash memory chip price will be $1.72 this year, down from about $2.03 in 2007. In 2009, the price is expected to be around $1.60. me: Sounds pretty rational to me. Dario, says everytime he gets a chance, that price erosion is normally 6% to 7% a q. 14% for the whole year of 08 sounds pretty good. If prices only drop to $1.6 next year then that means a price drop of only 7% for all of 09. Of course SPSN has a couple of things going for it the other players don't. Namely, they and Numonyx are the only guys producing the high density nor chips that generate the most $s and SPSN's costs normally drop by 10% to 12% a q. Article: “There is tremendous pressure on prices because of excess capacity and better efficiencies in manufacturing,” says Brian Matas, vice president of research for IC Insights in Scottsdale, Ariz. me: Yeah, guess who is generating all the pressure from excess capacity and better efficiencies in manufacturing? Well, probably some of that pressure is also coming from the NAND guys, but SPSN has to be in the cat bird seat now that Numonyx is acting rational on the pricing issues. Article: The price decline will occur although unit shipments will rise by about 4% and bit shipments will increase 17% on 2008. NOR flash is used in a variety of equipment, such as cell phones, computers, MP3 players, video game consoles, set top boxes and other code storage devices. Overall, falling prices mean that the global NOR flash memory market will drop about 10% from $7.7 billion in 2007 to $7 billion in 2008. Price erosion will continue in 2009, albeit at a slower rate, and the NOR market will fall to about $6.8 billion. me: If SPSN gets a healthy chunk of that 17% bit shipment increase it could help fill out SP1 and generate greater efficiencies. Dario, in the CITI broadcast, indicated that he didn't agree with the Isuppli estimate of how fast the NOR market would decline. He thought it would be slower. Anyway, compared to the NAND/DRAM markets, the NOR markets seem to be Elysian fields of peace and serenity.