Hynix Banking on Flash Memory
By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter
Hynix Semiconductor is focusing on the steadily profitable NAND flash memory business, seeking to secure further strategic alliances with its overseas partners.
The world's No. 3 maker of NAND chips after Samsung Electronics and Japan's Toshiba, signed a five-year pact with Numonyx for joint development of NAND flash memory chips widely used in high-end handheld gadgets such as MP3 players and digital cameras.
Under the new agreement, Hynix and Numonyx will broaden their scope to deliver NAND memory technology and products and combine resources to develop NAND technologies and solutions.
Industry experts say the partnership will allow Hynix to tackle weak points, as Numonyx is one of the world’s major suppliers of non-volatile memory chips.
Numonyx, a spinoff from Intel, is the world’s No. 3 non-volatile memory provider after Samsung and Toshiba. NAND is one of the main types of non-volatile memory chips used in electronic devices.
"The deal is good for Hynix. Through the deal, Hynix can access non-memory technologies owned by Intel, making them strengthen NAND-related applications such as the next-generation storage device of solid-state drives," said Song Myung-sup, a CJ Securities analyst.
"As the industry shifts more toward NAND, a more expensive technology but with much higher capacity, Hynix has grabbed a chance to narrow technology limits in transferring NAND-related technologies to those of the next-generation."
Giving future flash a long lifetime and more storage capacity requires a new non-volatile storage mechanism, as flash memory is at the heart of most popular gadgets that retain software, photos, music and texts even after being switched off.
But experts say serious issues will begin to arise when dimensions get below the 20-nanometer level due to the retention of the electric charge in the flash transistor.
They say that once the flash memory transistors reach 20 nanometers thick, their use will significantly reduce the number of times they can be written and erased.
Most flash memory transistors are about 65 nanometers thick, with the next generation set for 45-nanometer level, industry estimates say.
A market research firm iSuppli expected the NAND flash suppliers to suffer for one more quarter before pricing should begin to recover as the growing NAND sector has shown steady signs of falling into the same cyclical patterns with NAND heading into a downturn after a rapid production in global capacity.
Second quarter shipments of Hynix NAND chips fell 15 percent on quarter.