Toshiba has notified its clients that the company plans to slash its total NAND flash output by 50% in May and June, due to limited availability of blank wafers and other raw materials caused by the recent disasters in Japan, according to industry sources.
Toshiba's factory site for NAND chip production has suffered little direct impact because it is located away from the earthquake-hit northeastern regions. However, as its suppliers of upstream parts and materials are based in the disaster areas, Toshiba has to scale down its NAND-chip production in the next couple of months, the sources said.
But surprisingly, faced with Toshiba's upcoming production cutback, system OEM and module vendors do not see chip shortages over the near term, the sources indicated.
Toshiba's downstream clients may have already secured most of the chips they needed before the March 11 earthquake, and therefore do not feel supply constraints at present, the sources said. However, their calm attitude toward Toshiba's reduced supply could also imply that demand for smartphones and other consumer electronics products has not been as strong as expected, the sources noted.
Recently launched tablet PCs have not yet created huge demand for NAND flash memory, the sources added.
Early April NAND flash contract prices grew at a slower rate compared to levels in March. Average prices for mainstream 32Gb MLC NAND flash rose 3% to US$6.10 in the first half of April while those for higher-density 64Gb parts went up 2% to US$10.64.