Toshiba said Thursday it has shrunk the size of its 128Gbit NAND flash memory chips, in the race to bring more and tinier storage to products like USB storage and memory cards.

Together with partner SanDisk, the company said it is shipping the world’s smallest 128Gbit memory chip, with an area of 170 square millimeters. The chip uses a 19-nanometer technology process, one step smaller than a 20-nanometer chip announced by Intel and Micron in December.

NAND flash memory, which holds data even when not powered, is used for storage in smartphones, music players, and increasingly in super-thin laptops such as Apple’s MacBook Air and Intel-powered ultrabooks. Smaller chip sizes allow for smaller devices, but also drive down overall prices by allowing them to be more efficiently produced and forcing less advanced manufacturers to cut prices.

Toshiba’s newest chip uses a storage method called three bits per cell, which is more efficient but less reliable than two bits per cell, meaning it is likely be used initially in products like memory sticks and cards. A cell is a single unit of storage on a chip.

Toshiba, which is a major supplier to well-known companies like Apple, said it began mass production of the new chip this month.

Toshiba and SanDisk share research and development and jointly invest in manufacturing.

The two companies are in a race with rivals such as Intel, which partners with Micron Technology, and with Samsung to continuously crank out smaller chips, a battle that requires massive spending on production equipment.

Source: Computerworld

Canalys today released its full, detailed Q4 2011 country-level smart phone shipment estimates to clients, so completing the picture for the year. One notable result was that total annual global shipments of smart phones exceeded those of client PCs (including pads) for the first time.

Vendors shipped 158.5 million smart phones in Q4 2011, up 57% on the 101.2 million units shipped in Q4 2010. This bumper quarter took total global shipments for the whole of 2011 to 487.7 million units, up 63% on the 299.7 million smart phones shipped throughout 2010. By comparison, the global client PC market grew 15% in 2011 to 414.6 million units, with 274% growth in pad shipments. Pads accounted for 15% of all client PC shipments in 2011.

“In 2011 we saw a fall in demand for netbooks, and slowing demand for notebooks and desktops as a direct result of rising interest in pads,” said Chris Jones, Canalys VP and Principal Analyst. “But pads have had negligible impact on smart phone volumes and markets across the globe have seen persistent and substantial growth through 2011. Smart phone shipments overtaking those of client PCs should be seen as a significant milestone. In the space of a few years, smart phones have grown from being a niche product segment at the high-end of the mobile phone market to becoming a truly mass-market proposition. The greater availability of smart phones at lower price points has helped tremendously, but there has been a driving trend of increasing consumer appetite for Internet browsing, content consumption and engaging with apps and services on mobile devices.”

However, Canalys expects to see smart phone market growth slow in 2012 as vendors exercise greater cost control and discipline, and put more focus on profitability. Notably, even vendors who have focused on conquering the low-end of the market with aggressive pricing, such as Huawei, ZTE and LG, are now placing greater attention on the higher tiers. Flagship models aimed at raising selling prices and improving margins will feature more heavily this year.

Apple’s impressive end to the year resulted in it becoming the leading smart phone and client PC vendor in Q4 2011, with shipments of 37.0 million iPhones, 15.4 million iPads and 5.2 million Macs. It also smashed the record for the most smart phones shipped globally by any single vendor in one quarter, beating Nokia’s previous record of 28.3 million shipped in Q4 2010. Moreover, Apple’s performance meant that it displaced Nokia, for the first time, as the leading smart phone vendor by annual shipments. Apple shipped 93.1 million iPhones in 2011, representing growth of 96% over 2010. The iPhone 4S benefitted from pent-up demand resulting from the launch coming in October rather than June, but Apple’s overall volume was also buoyed by continued shipments of the now more aggressively priced iPhone 4 and 3GS models.

Samsung also finished 2011 with a flourish. It shipped 35.3 million smart phones in Q4 2011 under its own brand, bringing its total to 91.9 million for the year, compared to just 24.9 million in 2010. This excludes shipments of rebranded products, such as the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus, which Canalys counts under the Google brand. Samsung continued to spend big on marketing activities, and its strong product portfolio – particularly the Android-based Galaxy S II – performed well.

Despite a disappointing set of financial results, Nokia’s smart phone performance in the fourth quarter gave cause for optimism. It shipped 19.6 million smart phones, down 31% from the record high of a year earlier, but up 17% on Q3 2011. The total was helped by 1.2 million and 0.6 million shipments of its Windows Phone and MeeGo-based products respectively, as well as improved Symbian Belle volumes from competitively priced devices such as the Nokia 500, 700 and 701. Its total smart phone shipments for the year came in at 77.3 million globally.

“Its first Windows Phone products, the Lumia 800 and 710, along with the recently announced Lumia 900 through AT&T in the US, have improved the outlook for Nokia,” said Canalys Senior Analyst, Tim Shepherd. “They are well-designed, competitive devices that demonstrate innovation is still alive within Nokia. But the battle is not over and it has huge challenges ahead. Nokia must continue to build out its Lumia portfolio with devices tailored to address all price points and all the markets in which it aims to compete. It must hasten its transition from Symbian to Windows Phone around the world and, with Microsoft, promote and generate excitement for the platform and new products. And it must succeed in attracting more developers to build high quality, locally relevant apps.”

RIM’s demise in 2011 has been over played by some, with the company ending the year as the fourth largest smart phone vendor and delivering annual unit growth of 5%. “There is no denying that RIM has had a tough year,” said Canalys Principal Analyst, Pete Cunningham. “But when you consider that it is transitioning to a new platform it has done well to increase volume while remaining profitable; the latter point being something that many other vendors struggle with. The appointment of Thorsten Heins as CEO will bring new energy to the company while ensuring that it does not radically deviate from its overall strategy in this transitional year. However, 2012 will become even more competitive and RIM needs BlackBerry 10 devices out there to ensure it retains its status as a major player.”

At a platform level, Android accounted for 52% of global smart phones shipments in Q4 2011, with iOS representing 23% and Symbian 12%. Android was also the leading smart phone platform by volume for the whole year, accounting for 49% of all devices shipped in 2011 and ahead of iOS with 19% share and Symbian with 16%. Collectively, Android smart phone shipments grew 149% year on year in Q4 2011 to 81.9 million units, resulting in a total of 237.8 million for the full year, up 244% on 2010. Samsung’s success and focus on Android have contributed substantially to the growth of the platform, but other vendors, such as Sony Ericsson, Huawei, Motorola, LG and particularly HTC, have also seen significant growth in their Android volumes over the course of 2011.

Source: Canalys

However IHS qualifies its prediction by adding that ‘the overall picture could brighten considerably if theUnited Statesand the rest of the world recover in 2013.’

Recovery in the macro economy would result in growth from 2013 to 2015 averaging  6.6 to 7.9 % with the industry growing to nearly $400bn by 2015.

‘A deliberate decrease in manufacturing run rates by companies in the third quarter of 2011 proved unable to bring inventory down to levels that would have fired up additional orders and increased factory run rates,’ says HIS, ‘as a result, semiconductor demand for manufacturers will remain depressed until the second quarter of 2012.’

IHS reckons because factory utilisation will not recover until the middle of 2012, with having difficulty  maintaining the viability of underperforming factories. With current manufacturing capacity deemed acceptable for meeting demand, most capital expenditures to boost efficiency within the industry likely will be pushed out to 2013.

DRAM revenues are expected to decline 16.1% in 2012 on top of a 26.8% fall in 2011.

Foundries will continue to outperform the industry, while IDMs will have lower growth, especially as they have abdicated manufacturing in leading-edge technology — where the high margins are —t o the foundries.

IDMs which allow fabless or foundry companies to control leading-edge design or production risk consolidation, says IHS, which would have the unintended effect of providing rival foundries with even more opportunities for additional growth.

Source: ElectronicsWeekly – IHS

Competitors Intel and Advanced Micro Devices also reported that they were affected by the floods, as HDD manufacturers like Western Digital start to bring their operations back to normal in Thailand.

Research firm Gartner however warned earlier this month that the major impact of the HDD shortage after the floods will be felt in the first half of this year, and even potentially continue through the year. The shortage had a limited impact on fourth quarter PC shipments and prices, but PC shipment growth could be temporarily affected during 2012, it said.

Western Digital, which saw its factories in Thailand inundated in the floods, said on Monday that it expects its hard disk drive production capacity to be restored to pre-flood levels only by the third quarter of this year.

The disk drive shortage caused by the flooding in Thailand had more impact on the mainstream GPU (graphics processing unit) segment than anticipated, Nvidia said. Revenue for the company’s fiscal fourth quarter is now expected to be $950 million, plus or minus 1 percent, compared with original expectations of $1.0 billion, plus or minus 2 percent, provided on Nov. 10, it said. Shipments by some PC makers were reduced, and some were not able to include a GPU in their systems because of the higher prices of disk drives, Nvidia said.

Revenue from AMD’s graphics segment decreased 10 percent to $382 million in the quarter ended Dec. 31, the company said on Tuesday. The decline was partly caused by the hard-drive shortage, it said.

Western Digital said it has continued to ramp HDD production in Thailand and on Sunday resumed slider production which had been suspended since Oct. 10.

The company said, while announcing its results for the quarter ended Dec. 30, that it had incurred charges and expenses of $199 million related to the flooding during the quarter. The company shipped 28.5 million drives in the quarter, in contrast to 57.8 million in the previous quarter.

The shortage of HDDs has affected Intel as well. The shortages did not affect PC sales as computer makers tried to clear out existing inventory, but there was a reduction in orders for new microprocessors, which hurt Intel, the company said earlier this month during its fourth-quarter earnings call. The shortage of hard drives will continue to affect the company in its first fiscal quarter, it said.

Source:Computerworld

Capital spending for DRAM is also expected to decline to less than $5 billion in 2012, according to the firm. This would translate to roughly 4.3 percent of expected DRAM sales, the lowest level ever, according to IC Insights. By contrast, DRAM capital spending equated to roughly 7.3 percent of sales last year and about 11.3 percent of sales in 2010, according to the company.

Since the mid 1990s, flash memory units shipments have grown by a double-digit percentage every year except last year, when units grew by 9 percent, according to Brian Matas, vice president of market research at IC Insights. Matas said Thursday (Jan. 12) that the firm expects flash shipments to return to double digit growth in 2012 and for the foreseeable future.

“There are a lot of mobile platforms that are driving flash growth [to levels] even greater than what we have been seeing,” Matas said, pointing to smartphones, media tablets, PC solid-state drives (SSDs) and embedded SSDs.

Of the projected $32.8 billion in NAND sales for 2012, IC Insights projects that $29.5 billion will come from NAND flash, up 15 percent from 2011. Meanwhile, the firm projects that NOR flash revenue will shrink to about $3.3 billion in 2012, down from about $4 billion in 2011.

By 2016, IC Insights projects that NOR flash will account for only 4 percent of all flash memory revenue, down from 13 percent last year and 35 percent in 2007.

IC Insights projects that NAND flash revenue will grow steadily over the next five years, reaching $55.6 billion in 2016. The firm expects DRAM revenue to grow to $54.3 billion in 2016 from $31.2 billion last year.

Matas also predicted consolidation among DRAM players, speculating that the increasing costs of production will cause some weaker players to drop out of the market and curb the over expansion that creates the boom and bust cycles that have plagued DRAM from the beginning.

“It’s going to be more difficult for DRAM players to overspend than it was in the past,” Matas said, noting that the high cost of modern fabs and production facilities will make it all but impossible for some debt-ridden firms to keep pace.

Source: EETimes

Source: The Telegraph – UK

The seven-year-old venture cut its capital by 15 percent in July and industry sources had said Sony was negotiating an exit, aiming to switch to cheaper outsourcing for flat screens for its TVs while Samsung pushes ahead with next-generation displays.

“In terms of direction it is a positive (for Sony),” said Keita Wakabayashi, an analyst at Mito Securities in Tokyo, about the deal. “But if they are making a loss on the sale, one could ask why they didn’t make this decision sooner.”

“Their biggest problem is that they are not making a profit even though they don’t have many plants,” he said.

In November, Sony, the world’s third largest flat panel TV maker, warned of a fourth straight year of net losses for the financial year to next March, with its TV unit alone set to lose $2.2 billion on tumbling demand and a surging yen.

The company said on Monday it would review its earnings forecast to reflect 66 billion yen in impairment losses from the transaction, as well as expected future cost savings.

While the sale is seen as a move in the right direction for Sony, it will not be good for Samsung, analysts said.

“Sony may shift to Taiwanese LCD makers should they offer cheaper prices,” Song Myung-sup, an analyst at HI Investment & Securities, said in Seoul.

Shares in Sony ended 1.6 percent higher, compared with a 1 percent gain in Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei average, while Samsung Electronics shares fell 0.2 percent.

Sony’s panel venture with Samsung, S-LCD, was established to secure stable supplies for Sony’s flat-screen TVs at a time of shortages.

AILING BUSINESS

Once a symbol of Japan’s high-tech might, Sony has sold off TV factories in Spain, Slovakia and Mexico in the past few years and outsources more than half of its production to companies including Hon Hai Precision Industry, the contract electronics maker that also counts iPhone maker Apple Inc as a key customer.

Sony retains four TV plants of its own — in Japan, Brazil, China and Malaysia.

Some analysts say the $100 billion LCD TV market peaked last year and forecast it will shrink 3 to 4 percent annually, as consumers in advanced countries have already traded in their bulky cathode-ray tube TV sets for flat screens, while the LCD market has been in a glut since last summer.

Global TV manufacturers are restructuring their businesses and outsourcing production as cut-throat competition and weak demand squeeze margins.

Analysts have criticized Sony for failing to aggressively take on the competition in the TV market from South Korean rivals Samsung and LG Electronics Inc, the largest and second-largest players, respectively.

In November, Sony cut its TV unit sales forecast for the second time this year and dropped a plan to boost its TV sales to 40 million sets a year in the fiscal year ending March 2013, effectively conceding defeat to Samsung, the world’s largest flat-panel TV maker.

Samsung has said it expects the flat-panel TV market to grow 10 percent next year, and aims to outperform the market.

Sony said in April it would not raise its stake in a separate LCD venture with Sharp Corp for at least a year, and in August said it would merge its loss-making small-panel business with the government-backed Japan Display.

In October, it signaled a stepped-up push into the smartphone market by announcing it would take control of its mobile phone joint venture with Ericsson for $1.5 billion.

The company is hoping to exploit its music and video content and compatibility with its other devices like TVs and tablet computers to help it catch up with smartphone leaders such as Apple.

Source: Reuters