Hynix Pins Hope on Non-Memory Biz
By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter
In an ambitious bid to fight a tide of red ink and mounting market losses, Hynix Semiconductor has embarked on a more profitable project: the lucrative non-memory business.
The world’s second-biggest manufacturer of memory chips after Samsung Electronics said Friday that it will produce 3-megapixel image sensors targeting digital still cameras in the third quarter of this year as scheduled.
``There is no change in our schedule to manufacture the product, in addition to our plan for 2-megapixel and 1.3-megapixel products on our M7 line,’’ Hynix spokesperson Park Hyun said.
The official added the Icheon, Gyeonggi Province-based company will provide its foundry services to the strategic partner SiliconFile with the latter buying the products at an ``appropriate’’ level.
The NAND flash chip-based CMOS image sensor (CIS) sector has been recognized as another ``cash-cow’’ by chipmakers as the demand for the non-memory chips for cameras in cell phones has been gathering momentum in accordance with greater consumer appetite for high-end phones.
According to data from iSuppli, a market research firm, the global CIS market is expected to reach $4.6 billion by 2010 from $3.9 billion in 2007 as chip manufacturers have been making every effort to offset falling profits in the highly-volatile memory chip market.
``From the latter half, we will produce image sensors for car navigation systems,’’ Park said.
Hynix has been pushing for the contract-based ``foundry’’ business to trim losses from ever declining chip prices. ``Foundry’’ is a manufacturing process, which has widely been adopted by chipmakers including Sony to save skyrocketing costs of research and development.
The company recently acquired a 10 percent stake in Fidelix, a local chip design company to provide foundry services.