NOR Flash Memory Ushers in Dusk?

When looking back to the heyday of NOR flash memory when revenue surged a record $9.0 billion in 2004, we can not stop sighing how everything happened, and so quickly. Undoubted, the largest culprit is mobile memory solution. The need to meet increasing performance and storage requirements generates NAND flash, which, whether in raw NAND or as Embedded Multimedia Card (eMMC), has become the standard component of all smartphones as well as some lower-end handsets (feature phone). In addition, the continuing price dropping of NAND flash makes it more cost-effective than NOR flash memory.

 

Finishing outside reason, let’s turn to internal ones. IHS firm points out the overall decline in NOR revenue was also due to the loss of market suffered by higher-cost parallel NOR; but the root cause is: top manufacturers such as Micron Technology and Spansion are  away from previously lucrative consumer applications, moving instead toward high-growth but low-volume industrial uses.

 

Adding that there are more than 16 NOR manufacturers competing in an already fragmented, narrowing market makes the future discouraging. In fact, DRAM in the field of PC presents similar situation. But because of the reduction of manufacturers, DRAM market is on the rise in price and unit shipment. Is there any possibility for NOR Flash memory come back?

 

Given the reduced presence in the cellphone and PC space, the NOR industry is now enlarging its footprint in key growth segments like automotive and home automation, including such applications as vehicle engine control, temperature sensors, smart meters, and home security systems, IHS said. 

 

IHS noted NOR flash content will increase dramatically as intelligence in automobiles proliferate, exemplified in self-monitoring as well as safety and security systems, so automotive market will exhibit considerable growth.