News & Analysis
Intel tips NAND strategy, reveals a surprise
Mark LaPedus
2/4/2010 1:33 PM EST
LEHI, Utah -- During a recent event here, the new chief of Intel Corp.'s NAND group outlined the company's strategy and revealed a surprise: The chip giant hopes to be the technology and solid-state storage (SSD) leader, but it is not seeking to be the top player in the discrete market.
Intel wants to avoid the cyclical, market share game in the NAND flash chip sector against the likes of Samsung, Hynix and Toshiba. But Intel dropped hints it wants to unseat Samsung as the No. 1 player in SSDs.
What's surprising about its discrete chip strategy is Intel generally aspires to be No. 1 in a given market, such as processors and chipsets. Generally, if Intel lags in a market, it exits the sector. For example, Intel has exited the ASIC market, communication ICs, NOR flash, branded PCs, supercomputers and other sectors for one reason or another over the years.
SSD is a different story. In fact, Intel this year plans to ship a line of SSDs, based on a new family of 25-nm parts made by the company's venture with Micron Technology Inc., said Tom Rampone, the new vice president and general manager of Intel's NAND Solutions Group.
"We want to be a leader in SSDs,'' he told EE Times at the event here. In 2010, ''we want to bring SSDs out of the niche markets and into the mainstream.''
Over the years, though, Intel has experienced some ups and downs in flash. The company is said to have introduced the first commercial NOR type flash chip in 1988. Although it became the process and market share leader in NOR, the company generally lost money in the business. In NOR, there were (and still are) too many players in a declining market.
Several years ago, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Fujitsu Ltd. saw the light and spun out their NOR venture into a company called Spansion. More recently, Intel jettisoned its NOR unit. That business was combined with STMicroelectronics Inc.'s flash unit to form what is now Numonyx NV.
Comments
Volatile Memory
2/5/2010 12:06 AM EST
So, are you saying that Intel is smart enough for trying to get rid of the money-losing NOR thing, while Micron is stupid enough to want it?
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zman_tekinsil
2/5/2010 10:49 AM EST
Good observation from Fan of ECD: "...Intel is smart enough for trying to get rid of the money-losing NOR thing, while Micron is stupid ...". I have been following the Flash memory at Intel, including the PCM. I was also looking closely at some people in these businesses. It is sad that that these people did not chose another vocation when Intel jetisoned its NOR business!
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resistion
2/5/2010 11:30 AM EST
It is a bit ironic that Flash-based SSD's currently fail to gain wins over HDDs due to cost and reliability. This is in a way the same reason why PCM or other alternative memories fail to win over Flash.
Also, not every SSD vendor makes its own DRAM. This I think gives mainly Samsung and possibly Micron some advantage.
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Mark LaPedus
2/6/2010 3:22 PM EST
Hi. I received this e-mail from Steve Myers, a partner for Japaninvest:
Intel CEO ''Otellini said, perhaps 1 year into the JV w/Micron when chip prices were collapsing that Intel would refocus on SSDs, particularly for the enterprise. They have had some controller issues but have been systematically learning a lot about NAND's peculiarities and how to handle them.
The controller has a tough task which will get tougher with x3 and eventually x4 parts. In any case, I think Intel is correct in thinking there is more money in NAND working together as an SSD than in NAND as a few chips for a USB drive. Simple redundancy and a bus interface suffice for the latter.''
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Volatile Memory
2/9/2010 9:44 PM EST
Ooops, so is Micron stupid or did they make some side deal with Intel?
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zman_tekinsil
2/10/2010 9:54 AM EST
Time will tell if there is a deal.
As for "..Intel CEO Otellini said, perhaps 1 year into the JV w/Micron when chip prices were collapsing that Intel would refocus on SSDs, particularly for the enterprise..." Intel's first market target is the handheld that was somewhat backed by Apple. If I recall, earlier Apple injected some money to Intel's NAND Flash.
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