Miin Wu, chairman and CEO of Macronix International, expects to see a balance in supply and demand for NOR flash chips in the third quarter quarter of 2010. Prices for the memory, widely used in PC and consumer electronics applications, will have little room to go up unless significant back-to-school demand shows up, said Wu.
The NOR flash market started seeing shortages in early 2010 on a demand pickup and limited fab capacity, Wu indicated. Capacity has not been increasing much since the start of the second half of the year, but the market is now heading toward a demand-supply balance amid concerns about demand in the end market, Wu said.
Customers are now starting to digest their inventories with new orders slowing down, he added.
Despite the conservative outlook for second-half 2010, Macronix's shipments of NOR products are still expected grow 30-40% in the period as compared to those shipped in the first half, Wu noted. Wu attributed the shipment growth to the company's technology transition.
Macronix was quoted in previous reports saying the company is sampling 75nm-made NOR products to customers, and 0.11-micron process will make up 50-60% of its total NOR flash sales in the second half of 2010.
Macronix has estimated third-quarter revenues at NT$8-8.2 billion (US$252-258 million), with utilization rate to remain strong at over 98%. The company reported revenues of NT$7.33 billion for the second quarter, up 12% sequentially.
In addition, Macronix is eyeing the automotive NOR flash market, according to Wu. The company's new 12-inch wafer fab, which is set to come on line in the first quarter of 2011, will support the needs of its automotive customers, said Wu.
In June, Wu unveiled Macronix' plans to venture into the production of NOR chips for car-use applications such as dashboards and engine control units.