Numonyx accelerates evaluation process for phase change memory

SANTA CLARA, USA: In a keynote address at the Flash Memory Summit, Numonyx CTO Ed Doller announced a new program designed to accelerate the evaluation process for businesses and designers interested in Phase Change Memory (PCM), a new class of non-volatile memory that continues to grow in popularity across numerous industries.

PCM is poised to support new usage models and address the insatiable appetite for memory that is currently being driven by the convergence of consumer, computer and communications electronics systems. With today’s introduction of the Numonyx PCM Early Access Program, customers will be able to evaluate and “kick the tires” on PCM technology immediately.

Participants in the Early Access Program will have an opportunity to review preliminary data sheets from Numonyx on existing and future PCM products from the company.

Participants will also have an opportunity to order engineering samples of PCM products through the Numonyx sales team. In addition, the company will provide regular updates on essential news and data to ensure customers have all the latest available information about PCM.

Numonyx is the industry leader in the development of PCM technology and is committed to aggressively competing in this segment. The company was the first to commercially ship PCM products with the December 2008 release of “Alverstone,” a 90nm single-bit-per-cell device.

Numonyx has an advanced version of Alverstone currently sampling, and a next-generation chip, based on 45-nm lithography, is scheduled to begin sampling later this year.

2Q09 branded NAND Flash makers sales rose 33.6pc QoQ to $2.786bn

TAIPEI, TAIWAN: Benefited from NAND Flash suppliers’ production-cut effect and restock demand from emerging market, NAND Flash ASP rose about 20 percent QoQ in 2Q09.

Total branded NAND Flash shipment increased about 10 percent QoQ and it resulted in the overall branded NAND Flash makers’ revenue improvement in 2Q09. 2Q09 branded NAND Flash makers’ total sales increased 33.6 percent QoQ to $2.786bn from $2.086bn in 1Q09.

According to the ranking, Samsung remains its leadership place with 37.2 percent market share and records $1.037bn revenue, followed by Toshiba with 34.5 percent market share and $960mn revenue.

Hynix ranks No. 3 with 10.3 percent market share and $288mn revenue, while Micron takes the No. 4 seed with $236mn. Intel and Numonyx grab No. 5 and No. 6 with $193mn and $72mn, respectively.

Benefited from the inventory replenishment from mobile market, NAND Flash shipment slight increased with raising ASP in 2Q09. Samsung’s 2Q09 revenue was up 38.3 percent QoQ to $1.037bn, while the 2Q09 market share climbed to 37.2 percent from 36 percent in 1Q09.

Toshiba maintained lower utilization in 2Q09, but quarterly sales increased 29.7 percent QoQ to $960mn because of the enhancing ASP. The 2Q09 market share is slightly down to 34.5 percent from 35.5 percent in 1Q09.

With boosting 23 percent QoQ ASP and 40 percent QoQ shipment, Hynix’s sales significantly rose 68.4 percent QoQ to $288mn in 2Q09. The 2Q09 market share is up to 10.3 percent from 8.2 percent in 1Q09.

Micron and Intel camp demonstrated the upward shipment pattern with lower ASP in 2Q09. Micron’s sales rose 18 percent QoQ to $236mn with 8.5 percent market share in 2Q09. Intel recorded $193mn revenue with 24.5 percent QoQ growth rate and 6.9 percent market share in 2Q09.

Numonyx recorded $72mn revenue with 2.9 percent QoQ despite of mild shipment decline and slightly raising ASP in 2Q09. Numonyx market share in 2Q09 is about 2.6 percent.Source: DRAMeXchange

Numonyx intros M29 flash memory for high speed embedded apps

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: Numonyx B.V. today introduced Numonyx Axcell M29W and M29DW, a new high speed, single-level cell (SLC) NOR flash memory that delivers market-leading random access times and higher levels of compatibility for memory-intensive embedded devices.

Optimized for 256Mb applications in the automotive, consumer electronics, communications and computing markets, these latest additions to its Axcell M29 family of products deliver 70 nanoseconds (ns) random access time with the capability to support 60ns, which is significantly faster than the industry average 90ns of competing products.

Coupled with pin-for-pin compatibility with existing product architectures, the high performance of the Axcell M29W and M29DW meets a rapidly growing demand in the 256Mb market, one of the fastest growing densities for embedded applications.

“The embedded market presents an incredibly varied number of application segments with broad needs for different solutions,” said Glen Hawk, vice president and general manager of the Embedded Business Group at Numonyx.

“Customers recognize Numonyx as a company with the technology and resources to provide the solutions to meet all these needs. Now with the Axcell M29W and M29DW devices joining the already shipping 256Mb M29EW, we are able to provide three different 65nm NOR memory products purposely designed to address those unique needs.”

The 256Mb Axcell M29W and Axcell M29DW are designed to help embedded customers reduce costs and simplify designs by supporting the popular, industry-standard command set.

The Axcell M29W supports uniform block architecture while Axcell M29DW provides a parameter block, multibank architecture, supporting reads in one bank while program or erase functionality in an alternate bank. Both M29W and M29DW will support AEC-Q100 certification, a higher level reliability certification required by automotive manufacturers.

In addition to fast 70ns random access time, these new products also provide a dramatically increased programming speed that enables customers to improve programming throughput, time-to-market and total cost of ownership.

At speeds of nearly 3.2MB per second, the new memory can provide a full-chip programming advantage of as much as eight times faster than typical competitive products. With the addition of the 256Mb density devices, the Axcell M29W and M29DW families now extend their density range into this additional segment.

As embedded systems continue to evolve, they bring a growing need for secure solutions for their memory subsystems. Numonyx Axcell M29W 256 Mb flash memory continues to offer “S” secure compatible versions for increased device security.

Based on industry-standard (JEDEC) footprints and command sets, the Numonyx Axcell M29W and M29DW family of products has the benefit of broad industry support, design flexibility and enables embedded customers to scale the memory subsystem across various densities.

Numonyx NOR flash memory has been in production on 65nm technology for more than 18 months, demonstrating dependable and proven manufacturing processes.

Samples of the 256Mb Numonyx Axcell M29W and M29DW product are available now with volume production in September 2009.

Samsung, Numonyx join forces on phase change memory

SEOUL, KOREA & GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Numonyx B.V. are jointly developing market specifications for Phase Change Memory (PCM) products, a next generation memory technology that will help enable makers of feature-rich handsets and mobile applications, embedded systems and high-end computing devices to meet the increasing performance and power demands for platforms loaded with content and data.

Creating common hardware and software compatibility for PCM products should help simplify designs and shorten development time, enabling manufacturers to quickly transition to high-performance, low-power PCM products from both companies.

Phase change memory produces very fast read and write speeds at lower power than conventional NOR and NAND flash memory, and allows for bit alterability normally seen in RAM.

"Our joint efforts with Numonyx will enable a more secure path for introducing PCM into the mobile environment,” said SeiJin Kim, vice president, mobile memory technology planning and enabling, Samsung Electronics. “We anticipate that PCM will eventually be a major addition to our family of memory products, one that will nicely compliment our other mobile memory solutions and ultimately increase our leadership in the industry,” he added.

“This is a significant milestone for both the development of PCM and for the overall memory market,” said Brian Harrison, president and CEO of Numonyx. “The collaboration between two memory industry leaders, Numonyx and Samsung, is helping to provide the kind of direction and clarity that is often needed when new technologies are introduced. The common specifications will enable chipset vendors and others in the ecosystem to standardize and more easily support the delivery of a new generation of memory technology that will benefit not only handset OEMs, but also manufacturers of embedded systems and high-end computing devices, and their customers.”

Samsung and Numonyx are developing common specifications –- or “pin for pin” hardware and software compatibility -– for mobile, embedded and other potential computing applications supporting the JEDEC LPDDR2 Low Power Memory Device Standard. The LPDDR2 standard offers advanced power management features, a shared interface for nonvolatile memory (NVM) and volatile memory (SDRAM), and a range of densities and speeds.

Phase change memory has many of the advantages of NAND and NOR flash memory as well as other RAM memories –- allowing data to be read at RAM speeds while lowering the cost and power consumption levels by reducing the large amounts of RAM often used in today’s digital applications.

Phase change memory will also be “executable”, allowing a separation of code and data for reliable code storage —- particularly useful in handsets with higher data content. PCM devices will have faster programming ability than other types of memory as its RAM-like features will enable programming changes to be made bit by bit, instead of having to erase entire blocks of information.

Common specifications between the two companies will be completed this year, with both companies expecting to have compliant devices available next year.

Revenue ranking of NAND Flash branded firms in 1Q09

TAIPEI, TAIWAN: The 1Q09 total revenue of WW NAND Flash Branding companies was $2.086 billion, which dropped 2.4 percent from $2.137 billion in 4Q08.

Although the industry was still under the continuing impact of global recession and weakening demand, the price remained stable because certain NAND Flash makers adjusted their supply strategies. The overall average selling price increased 18 percent QoQ and the total shipment dropped 17 percent QoQ in 1Q09, says DRAMeXchange.

Fig. 1. 1Q09 Revenue Ranking of NAND Flash branded companies*1. 1Q09 foreign exchange average value: USD against JPY: 93.6 per dollar, USD against Korean Won: 1414 per dollar.
*2. 4Q08 foreign exchange average value: USD against JPY: 96 per dollar, USD against Korean Won: 1363 per dollar.
Source: DRAMeXchange, May 2009.

1Q09 NAND Flash branding company revenue rankings
Samsung’s revenue was $750 million, accounting for 36 percent of the market revenue and retained its number one position. Toshiba’s revenue was $740 million, which accounted for 35.5 percent of the market revenue as number two.

Micron surpassed Hynix with the 1Q09 revenue of $200 million, and accounted for 9.6 percent of the market revenue as number three. Hynix this time dropped to number four position with a revenue of $171 million. Intel's revenue was $155 million in the number five position. Numonyx was at number six position with a revenue of $70 million.

As far as Samsung is concerned, although the 1Q09 ASP went up, the shipment decreased. Under the influence of slow season, output reduction, and delaying new process, the supply bit growth declined. The demand of NAND Flash major applications, such as mobile phone and other consumer electronics products all had weakened in 1Q09.

Even with increasing ASP, the revenue of Samsung remained stable. Samsung's 1Q09 sales revenue was $750 million and its market share increased from 34.9 percent in 4Q08 to 36 percent in 1Q09. Samsung retained its number one position of the industry, according to DRAMeXchange.

Toshiba's NAND Flash ASP increased, but the supply decreased due to production cut. Its 1Q09 revenue remained stable and was at the $740 million level. Its market share was 35.5 percent, which slightly increased 1 percent as compared to Q409.

Micron became the number three with $200 million Q109 revenue. Its 1Q09 ASP and shipment dropped. Micron owned 9.6 percent market share in Q109. The 1Q09 ASP of Hynix increased, but its shipment decreased due to production cut. The 1Q09 revenue of Hynix was $171 million and dropped 22.3 percent QoQ. Hynix’s market share also slid down to 8.2 percent this quarter.

Intel's 1Q09 revenue was $155 million and its market share slightly increased to 7.4 percent, which is a little better than in 4Q08. The 1Q09 revenue of Numonyx remained stable and was estimated to be $70 million. The 1Q09 market share of Numonyx was 3.4 percent, which also slightly increased from the previous quarter.

Numonyx, Hynix and Phison to develop NAND memory system solutions

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: Hynix Semiconductor Inc, Numonyx B.V. and Phison Electronics Corp. have signed a collaboration agreement to jointly develop controllers for the next generation of managed-NAND solutions based on the newly released JEDEC eMMC 4.4 industry specification.

The collaboration is expected to speed the delivery of the industry’s most advanced eMMC specification available, helping to manage and simplify high-capacity storage requirements and improve the overall system-level performance of wireless and embedded applications.

Phison, Hynix and Numonyx will leverage their respective competencies to develop controllers used in combination with a variety of NAND flash products. Phison will exclusively supply the jointly developed controllers to Hynix and Numonyx, which will enhance their respective NAND flash memory solutions portfolio.

“Through this collaboration, Hynix expects to enhance its technology leadership of the NAND flash solutions,” said Min-goo Choi, Hynix senior vice president of Corporate Strategy Office. “Also, the company can expand its market share by diversifying its NAND flash products to the premium application products such as microSD, eMMC, SSD and more.”

“Standard interfaces like eMMC are becoming a common requirement for NAND Flash memory systems used in next 3G+ mobile platforms,” said Marco Dallabora, Numonyx vice president and general manager of the Wireless Business Group. “This agreement will allow Numonyx to bring its system-level expertise to provide compelling system solutions for our customers and partners.”

"As a leading provider of NAND flash controllers, Phison is very pleased to work with Numonyx and Hynix on an exciting product like eMMC 4.4," said K.S. Pua, chairman and CEO, Phison Electronics Corporation. "Through the collaboration, we hope to contribute our NAND management expertise to bring the best solution to the wireless market."

eMMC is an embedded non-volatile memory system, comprising both flash memory and a flash memory controller. The new MMC V4.4 standard features numerous enhancements including a doubling of the memory interface performance, flexible partition management and improved security options.

All three companies have a successful history of collaboration with each other. In June 2008, Hynix and Phison announced the joint development of NAND application technology and supply of NAND flash; Numonyx and Hynix entered into a joint development agreement in August 2008 to develop current and future NAND technologies and products; and Numonyx and Phison collaborated on the development of standard and enhanced eMMC4.3 solutions, which are now available in Numonyx products and solutions.

Products combining the jointly developed controllers by Phison and NAND flash memory from Numonyx and Hynix are expected to be available before the end of the year.

Top NAND suppliers of the world: DRAMeXchange

DRAMeXchange has recently released its rankings for the top NAND suppliers of the world. I am producing bits of that report here, for the benefit of those interested in NAND and the memory market.

Be aware, that this segment has been hit particularly bad. We have heard of Qimonda's problems, as well as Spansion's. They are trying to battle it out, gamefully, and best wishes to them.

The global semiconductor industry needs the flash memory segment to recover, and fast, to bring the health back in the industry, as well as the missing buzz!

Getting back to DRAMeXchange's report, NAND Flash brand companies released their total revenue of 2008. Samsung's annual revenue was $4.614 billion and it gained 40.4 percent market share, to maintain the number 1. position.

According to DRAMeXchange, the annual revenue of Toshiba was $3.25 billion, and its market share was 28.1 percent at the number 2 position. Its market share increased 3.1 percent compared to 2007.

Hynix's annual revenue was $1.727 billion, with 15.1 percent market share. Though it stayed at the number 3 position, its market share declined 4.1 percent, compared to 2007.

Micron's annual revenue was $897 million. It had a 7.9 percent market share, which enjoyed a 1.8 percent increase when compared to 2007. Micron was number 4. Intel was at number 5. Its annual revenue was $660 million with 5.8 percent market share, which increased 2.1 percent, compared to 2007.

Numonyx's (STMicro) 2008 annual revenue was $295 million. It was at number 6 position with the market share of 2.6 percent, which remained the same as 2007.

According to DRAMeXchange, the 4Q08 total revenue of worldwide NAND Flash brand companies was $2.227 billion, which dropped 19.3 percent from $2.761 billion in 3Q08. Under the continuing impact of global recession and the influence of declining worldwide consumer confidence, the 4Q08 revenue of NAND Flash brand companies showed signs of decreasing.

The overall demand and expenditure for consumer electronics declined. Although bit growth in 4Q08 increased 18 percent QoQ, the overall average selling price (ASP) dropped 32 percent QoQ, says DRAMeXchange. A big thanks to DRAMeXchange.

NAND update: Market likely to recover in H2-09

iSuppli's recently published a report on the current NAND market conditions, which highlighted that Micron had managed to buck the weak NAND market conditions, and was actually closing the gap with Hynix in Q2 2008.

To find out more about the global NAND Flash market scenario, I managed to discuss the health of the NAND market conditions, performance of certain companies, and the possible impact of SSDs on the NAND market, in depth with Nam Hyung Kim, Director & Chief Analyst, Memory, for the market research firm, iSuppli Corp., El Segundo, Calif., USA.

I would also like to thank Jonathan Cassell, Editorial Director and Manager, Public Relations, iSuppli, for helping me out a lot! Without his assistance, this would not have been possible! Many thanks.

Now on to iSuppli and the NAND update. First up, NAND continues to be weak. How much longer, before we can see some sort of recovery?

Nam Hyung Kim says that the NAND market conditions will depend on the suppliers' manufacturing capacity plans and on the global economy. The health of the NAND flash market is largely determined by consumer spending, since more than 85 percent of demand for the memory is generated by consumer-electronics-type products like digital still cameras, mobile handsets and flash storage devices.

"Market conditions won't improve much this quarter. However, iSuppli Corp. does expect NAND prices to stabilize to some degree during the fourth quarter due to a slowdown in certain suppliers' capacity expansion plans. A major recovery is expected in the second half of 2009," he says.

So, what's the reason for Micron to have done better in a weak market scenario?

According to Kim, Micron is doing well based on market share and sales growth—but not in terms of profitability. Micron has been expanding its market share by ramping up production aggressively. The company joined the flash market later than its competitors and is trying to catch up. In the memory world, a supplier needs to have critical scale. Without scale, the company won't be competitive. Thus, Micron is increasing its scale—i.e., its volume—to be more like the size of the top-three suppliers at this moment.

If Micron has been aggressive, why haven't the others? Possibly, the others could have also planned or migrate to 34nm! However, except for Samsung, all of the suppliers are losing money in their NAND businesses now.

"Each supplier has a different product mix and strategy, so being aggressive during tough times is not a suitable approach for certain firms. Others also plan to migrate their process to sub 40 nanometers. However, Micron will be the first one that produces 34nm products this year," adds Kim.

iSuppli has now cut its 2008 NAND annual flash revenue growth forecast from 9 percent to virtually zero. When the slowdown had already been predicted during the end of last year, what was the need to cut predictions?

Kim agrees that this is indeed the second cut this year. "We cut our forecast early this year to 9 percent, which was a dramatic reduction from the more than 20 percent growth forecast previously. I believe, we were the first research firm that cut the market growth dramatically this year, followed by other research firms.

"The NAND flash market is relatively new and has lots of growth potential. However, oversupply issues, along with weak consumer spending, prompted us to cut the growth outlook further this time."

Coming to the subject of solid-state drives, what are the chances of SSDs in helping with a turnaround in the NAND market? Or, are they (SSDs) hyped?

"I should not say SSDs (solid-state drives) are overhyped," adds Kim. "There are lots of issues that the industry must overcome when bringing SSD technology to the real world. Hard disk drives (HDDs) have been used in PCs for more than 30 years, so the movement to SSD technology won't be very rapid."

iSuppli had predicted that SSDs would not impact the market this year or next year. The real prime time for SSD adoption will be in 2010. There are many optimization problems associated with SSDs, which is typical at an early stage in the technology industry. By 2011, iSuppli believes SSDs will be the number one NAND flash market driver in terms of dollar value.

iSuppli also believes that the global NAND flash per-megabit average selling price (ASP) will decline by about 60 percent in 2008, compared to its previous forecast of a 56 percent decline. On quizzing, he says, "As mentioned, the NAND flash market, even in third-quarter, holiday season, won't have a turn around, which brings the ASP down to the 60 percent level."

When NAND is taken out of the equation, how does the semiconductor industry look like? iSuppli believes that the 2009 global semiconductor market growth will be higher than that of this year. The semiconductor market is also cyclical, so it will be impacted by global GDP growth this year.

Finally, how does the research firm forsee Nymonyx (there was an article saying it will conquer NAND Flash)?

According to Kim, Numonyx is still a major NOR flash supplier with limited NAND flash market share. Unlike Intel, Numonyx's focus is on mobile applications. Its joint-venture partner, Hynix, is scaling down its NAND flash production at this time and is focusing on DRAM production.

iSuppli doesn't expect Numonyx to be a formidable competitor in the NAND flash memory market during the near term.