Flash capacity propelling semi industry growth, firm says

By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor -- Electronic News, 10/3/2007

Given that flash memory capacity has grown more than fourfold to 2.9 million equivalent 200-mm wafers per month since 2000, compared to DRAM capacity which has grown by only 225 percent since that time, flash memory capacity will is expected to surpass DRAM capacity in 2008, according to San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based market research firm Strategic Marketing Associates.

George Burns, president of the firm noted that alliances between companies, along with Samsung, are driving the growth in flash capacity, with the Toshiba/SanDisk joint ventures (JVs) adding more capacity recently than Samsung, Hynix and IMFlash combined.

The Toshiba/SanDisk JVs include Flash Vision, Flash Partners and Flash Alliance. The firm has found that Flash Alliance’s Fab 4, which has just begun processing wafers, will have a capacity of 210,000 300-mm wafers per month when fully equipped, making it the biggest fab in the world, and equivalent to almost one half million 200-mm wafers.

At the same time, Toshiba/SanDisk’s Flash Partners Fab 3, has a capacity of 150,000 300-mm wafers per month, ,making it the industry’s second largest fab, the firm says.

Samsung, the market leader for flash memory sales, is also the only major flash memory manufacturer currently on its own, with its share of flash capacity at 24 percent -- slightly under that of the Toshiba/SanDisk joint ventures.  However, because Toshiba and SanDisk share their JV capacity 50-50, Samsung has more capacity than any other single company, Strategic Marketing Associates believes.

All the while, the rate at which flash manufacturers are adding capacity is growing as evidenced by the three year period from 2005 through the end of this year, during which time flash manufacturers will add six times the capacity that they added in the preceding four years, according to the firm, with this rate increasing in speed.

As such, in 2008 and 2009, the semiconductor industry is planning to bring ten more fabs online with a fully-equipped capacity of 1.5 million 200-mm equivalent wafers a month, which is almost 90 percent of what the industry brought online in the entire seven year period from 2001 to 2007, Burns said.

“Flash memory is one of the reasons we’re optimistic about capital spending in 2008. Flash has made this August’s growth of chip sales one of the strongest in many years. It will push capital spending up by as much as five percent next year, which could make it the biggest year in the industry’s history,” he added.