Hynix reduces NAND flash output

As DigiTimes over on Taiwan reports, Hynix Semiconductor has recently indicated the shut-down some of their old production lines due to oversupply and a weak market situation. Their announcement lead to an immediate increase of the price for USB NAND flash memory here on the spot-market in Hong Kong.

The reduction of output equals around 5% of global NAND flash memory production and is affecting mostly the spot market situation. Apple contractual volumes are still relatively low and it remains open if they will catch up with increased procurement volumes during summer. The rumors we hear from manufacturers and channel partners from Taiwan about possible further production cuts by Hynix due to a new strategic spin-off by setting up a joint-venture with Numonyx, a daughter-company of STMicroelectronics, but where the 1 billion USD invested so far shall be used to produce NOR flash instead of NAND. NOR flash is better suitable for usage in connection with wireless technology, and both Numonyx and also STMicroelectronics are at present focusing much of their development on wireless enabled embedded technology.

The EETimes also reports about this strategic Hynix Numonyx NAND flash move. Competitors such as Samsung or Intel react by carefully starting to hold back on their supply in order to further increase prices for downstream vendors. The the prices for 1GB, and also 2GB, 4GB and 8GB seem to be on a upwards trend again and we could observe how the 1GB capacity went up 0.30 USD within half a day on Friday.

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