Despite lower-than-expected output caused by certain problems in production lines, Toshiba will be able to deliver its NAND Flash shipments as per the dates and volumes in its fourth-quarter contracts, says DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce. After confirming with sources, DRAMeXchange refutes a report alleging that Toshiba’s monthly NAND Flash capacity has been reduced by nearly 100,000 wafers and some of its production lines have been suspended.
DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, estimates that mobile (LPDDR) DRAM products will see sequentially quarterly price increases in the average range of 10~15% in the fourth quarter of 2017. This price hike is attributed to DRAM suppliers seeking to correct price differences among various applications as well as the year-end busy season in the smartphone market. The percent of sequential price increase for mobile DRAM in the fourth quarter is expected to be the largest when compared with percent increases for DRAM used in other applications.
DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, estimates that 96% of all server CPUs shipped worldwide this year will be based on the x86 architecture. On the other hand, the ARMv8 architecture is expected to represent only around 1% of the total annual shipments of server CPUs. The market growth of ARMv8 products is constrained by their limited applications within the server market and the high degree of customization necessary for the development of solutions.
Demand has exceeded supply in the global NAND Flash market for six consecutive quarters since the third quarter of 2016, according to the latest research from DRAMeXchange, division of TrendForce. During this 2017, NAND Flash demand continues to expand because of the increase in average memory content of smartphones and the strong server market. At the same time, the growth in NAND Flash supply has been constrained by the pace of the major suppliers’ respective technology migrations, which in general have been slower than anticipated.
Toshiba announced on September 20 that the company has agreed to sell its memory business, Toshiba Memory Corporation (TMC) to a U.S.-Japanese consortium represented by U.S. private equity firm Bain Capita for JPY 2 trillion (USD 18 billion). According to DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, the deal will start to have a notable impact on the NAND Flash market in the first half of 2018 as the negotiations took longer than expected. From a medium- to long-term perspective, this deal will inject the necessary capital into TMC so that it can work to become a rival to Samsung in terms of NAND Flash technology and production capacity.