Silicon Motion Technology has seen the majority of controller chips it is shipping are for 40nm and 30nm NAND flash, according to company president and CEO Wallace Kou. The NAND flash controller supplier is on track to deliver products for 20nm NAND flash, which is expected to be available in the second half of 2010, said Kou.
With more NAND flash vendors to enter 20nm-class production in the second half of 2010, Kou expects prices for MLC NAND flash chips will be pushed down to allow a wider adoption of SSDs for PC applications.
Silicon Motion saw SSD controller shipments increase over 35% on quarter and 50% on year in the fourth quarter of 2009, and account for almost 10% of its total fourth-quarter revenues, according to the company. It has also secured design wins for four ultra-mobile MID and thin-client devices.
Silicon Motion revealed total unit shipments for the fourth quarter rose 5% sequentially to around 70 million units, with flash memory card and drive applications contributing 90% to the amount.
Silicon Motion has also begun shipping 3-bits per cell MLC controllers, which accounted for nearly 10% of its card controller sales in the fourth quarter, the company indicated.
Silicon Motion posted revenues of US$22.8 million in the fourth quarter, and saw sales generated from its mobile storage products (flash memory card and drive controllers, SSD controllers and embedded flash controllers) grow 7% sequentially to account for 66% of the company's overall revenues.
Silicon Motion reported net losses of US$17.3 million on a US GAAP basis for the fourth quarter, compared to losses of US$8.21 million a year ago. Net losses for 2009 amounted to US$29.17 million, signaling the company's slip into the red from profits of US$9.31 million in 2008.