With the NOR flash memory market moving toward a healthier supply/demand balance, major NOR chip producers have shifted their focus to transitions in production process nodes rather than price competition.
Spansion, which emerged from Chapter 11 reorganization in May 2010, has unveiled plans to grow sales generated from its newer 65nm node technology in 2011. The company expects sales of 65nm-made products to account for 25% of its total revenues by the end of the year.
Spansion is looking to win back lost market share during its insolvency proceedings. The company has recently expanded its GL-S family of NOR chips for embedded applications including automotive, consumer electronics and gaming. The new devices are built using 65nm process technology.
Taiwan's Macronix International is set to migrate to 75nm from 0.11-micron for NOR production in 2011, and will then move directly to a 57nm technology. Products made using 0.11-micron accounted for 57% of Macronix' total NOR sales in the fourth quarter of 2010.
Winbond Electronics has revealed plans to transition its NOR production process to 58nm from 90nm in the third quarter of 2011, the company was quoted as saying in previous reports.
In addition, both Macronix and Winbond are gearing up to develop their presence in the automotive NOR market in 2011, according to previous reports.