Toshiba and Samsung Make Fewer Flash Memory Chips Due to Price Issues

We can't really say we are upset about the falling prices of NAND Flash memory, since it inevitably means cheaper memory cards and solid-state drives, but Samsung and Toshiba don't share this opinion.

In fact, the two companies want to stop prices from falling down. Making them go up would probably be ideal for them, but it isn't likely.

The ultrabook market came back to bite the PC industry, since it disappointed in terms of sales. We honestly saw it coming, but SSD makers prepared for the great sales that Intel and its OEMs tried to persuade the masses into, which led to this situation.

In other words, SSD makers produced too many drives, and they continue to do so for the most part. So, naturally, with demand outstripping supply, prices had to go down.

SSDs used to be very expensive. Now, they are merely expensive, bordering on affordable (barely).

Nevertheless, Toshiba and Samsung feel that NAND Flash chip prices have been dropping too quickly, so they may soon take measures to counteract this phenomenon. Long story short, they will make fewer of them.

There is another factor, besides the ultrabook market, that led to this situation: process advancement.

Like all semiconductors, NAND Flash chips get better, cheaper to make and less-power hungry the smaller the manufacturing node is. Samsung and Toshiba hurried through their roadmaps until they reached the 21nm and 19nm processes, respectively. This boosted their production output significantly.

NAND Flash prices should be getting stable soon. It “helps” that Samsung cut its supply to China-based distributors long enough ago that effects had enough time to emerge. Admittedly, that move mostly had to do with memory cards, but the chip type is the same, so it had effects all around.

For consumers, this all is unfortunate. Samsung and Toshiba aren't doing much to help SSDs replace HDDs in 3-5 years.

Via: Toshiba and Samsung Make Fewer Flash Memory Chips Due to Price Issues