TAIPEI, Taiwan - The whole world is hard pressed for coded Flash memory (NOR Flash), and the appearance of new variables in this situation is possible. Mainland Chinese NOR chip provider GigaDevice have obtained assistance from SMIC and are currently expanding their NOR Flash production capacity. Each month SMIC provides GigDevice with a production capacity of 25,000 chips, increasing the scope of Mainland China's NOR Flash.
Memory industry insiders claim that GigDevice is expected to gradually carry out the endeavor of expanding their production capacity in the first quarter of next year, and major Taiwanese suppliers, including Macronix, Winbond Electronics Corp., and FineArt Technology Co., Ltd., are also planning to increase production in an effort to seize business opportunities. There are fears that this will lead to another NOR chip price war in Q1 of next year with competitive pressure especially increasing on low-volume products.
Currently, there is a lack of global NOR chip inventory, and China's biggest NOR memory supplier, GigaDevice, has been actively planning to expand their NOR production capacity since June of this year. However, because silicon wafers have been out of stock, production quantity increases have been limited.
Nevertheless, thanks to support from the government of Mainland China, GigaDevice has newly developed plans to expand production, and support from SMIC has been particularly important. SMIC has pledged to provide 25,000 chips worth of monthly production capacity to GigaDevice for their OEM production of NOR memory. The result will be a 30% increase in production capacity from the current estimated monthly production capacity of 88,000 chips.
(TR/ Phil Sweeney)
