Fabtech has an excellent editorial on the consolidation of the DRAM industry in Taiwan. Citing lack of any IP as a competitive weakness, and outlining how the government here intends to consoldiate the industry while strengthening the IP, the editorial ends saying "some way down the road more consolidation will be required to bulk up against Samsung. IMHO, either Micron or Elpida should get all the Taiwan DRAM companies, that way creating a low-cost, IP protected powerhouse that would keep Samsung in check."
3 comments:
Does Elpida have any significant Flash IP?
One of Samsung's advantages, as I understand it, is they can switch capacity between DRAM and Flash, while Taiwanese manufacturers have always been a generation behind and have never been able to take advantage of this.
The other thing is if either Micron or Elpida got everyone, who's going to manufacture for who's left? Does any non-Taiwanese company have any significant DRAM fab capacity for the odd man out to use?
It'd be tough to merge R&D in the US/Japan/Taiwan, but maybe what really needs to happen is an Elpida-Micron-Taiwan DRAM merger.
I don't know what Elpida's flash capabilities are. I also thing Samsung just are a very strong company with a lot of IP protection and can push down prices close to cost and still come out on top with a small margin. Taiwanese companies can't.
As for manufacture for the others, I don't know. It would be intresting to see how it pans out. I expect a lot of companies might close. I see Qimonda is not on their last legs too.
Thanks for your insightful comments. They keep us all informed and thinking.
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