Apple monopolizes Taiwan NOR flash market

“Both Silicon Storage Technology (SST) and Spansion, who are said to have their capacities fully booked by Apple, have no additional capacity to fulfill demand from motherboard makers,” Hans Wu and Esther Lam report for DigiTimes.

“Given that Apple demands a considerable amount of NOR flash and that there is persistent demand growth from handset vendors in China, Spansion is said to have no additional capacity left, the sources said. Spansion rival SST, which focuses relatively more on the motherboard market, is said to have encountered a similar situation,” Wu and Lam report.

MacDailyNews Note: NOR vs. NAND memory card architecture: NOR flash is typically used for flash memory that’s used to store and run code; it has fast read capability, but is slower than NAND for write and erase functions. For example, in the iPhone, NOR would be used for the operating system code while NAND would be used to store music, videos, etc.

“Citing the present supply situation, several leading NOR flash makers should continue to see their supplies being booked by Apple in the coming months, the sources stressed,” Wu and Lam report.

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Linux Guy And Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]

17 Comments

  1. Well DUH!! I guess they just have to ramp up production

    Jesus H. Christmas, I’ve been waiting FOR YEARS for a reasonably priced flash RAM based notebook instead of fragile hard drive based models.

    The same old cycle, “can’t ramp up production becuase there is no demand” “can’t produce flash based laptops because there isn’t enough cheap ram”

    WELL GET ON THE GODDARN JOB!!

    They have been milking us for expensive RAM for WAY WAY WAY TOO LONG NOW.

    It’s been holding up the entire industry from innovating to better products.

  2. Just imagine for a second a iPhone with a screen size of a 15 or 17″ laptop, super slim. No DVD or CD drive necessary because a high capacity SD type chip would be used instead of USB.

    Battery life measured in weeks instead of hours, no firewire ports necessary because a new high capacity wireless would be used for immense data transmisstion.

    A 17″ iPhone device with that revolutionary touch screen interface like we see on these experimental coffe table devices.

    Now that would be ultra cool. But clunky and battery sucking hard drives and DVD/cd drives are keeping the industry back.

  3. BTW check out Slashdot, Apple section, something about a $4800 iPhone bill because the iPhone is NOT OFF when you turn it off, it still is checking for eMail.

    Also HardMac has a story of the new glossy iMac screens being of LESSOR quality than the previous version of iMac, meaning Apple is indeed “cheapening” the iMac line to promote sales of the Mac Pro.

    It’s really sad the only way to get a matte screen from Apple is in the pro models or by sticking a POS Dell screen on a precious Mac. Kind of FSCKS up the fhen shway thingamajig.

  4. @Fiber Optics:
    What are you smoking?
    The iPhone data plan with AT&T;is unlimited data – so it doesn’t matter if the iPhone is checking for emails every second, it cost the same as if you check it once day.

    Still harping on the glossy screen are we?

  5. BTW check out Slashdot, Apple section, something about a $4800 iPhone bill because the iPhone is NOT OFF when you turn it off, it still is checking for eMail.

    Yeah right. This guy claimed he has “turned it off” because he is too ignorant to tell the difference between “off” and “sleep”. Practically all cellphones have on/off/sleep modes nowadays and to turn it off, you have to press a button for several seconds. Just because the screen is blank, it doesn’t mean the phone is off.

  6. My mom and dad were down in San Diego near Mexican border (a bit north so not smack on the border but general area).

    They made phone calls from within US, and were charged use of Mexican international phone towers!

    AT&T;worked it out, my mom said they were very accommodating.

    In fact, before my family got iPhones I read many people complaining about AT&T;on here saying how horrid their service was. We had numerous problems with Verizon. My mom had several occasions where she waited over an HOUR at physical store for VERIZON. Numerous cases of being treated horribly both in store and on phone.

    AT&T;? Not one problem so far, never a wait anything close to an hour. Service that’s dependable, courteous, and for a cell phone company, efficient.

  7. @twilightmoon

    Ultimately I’m happy for you that you’ve found ATT acceptable to work with, but comparing ATT with Verizon is roughly like comparing one felony criminal with another one – just my opinion obviously – but – – there you have it.

    But glad you’re iPhone experience is going well, personally I love most Apple products and find them well worth the investment in every way.

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