Spansion recently announced a joint development with United Microelectronics (UMC) to integrate its proprietary embedded charge trap (eCT) flash memory technology with the foundry's 40nm low power (LP) process. This provides Spansion a platform for new products, which combine flash and logic to enhance processing performance for applications that are memory, processing and MIPS intensive, and will also be valuable in Spansion's licensing business in the future.
Digitimes asked Glenda Dorchak, executive VP and GM of Global Business at Spansion, about how the company sees its operations and market moving forward, as well as recent developments of its NAND flash business.
Q: What is Spansion's current strategy for your NOR flash business? How would you encounter the declining sales in handsets and PCs?
A: Spansion's strategy is to leverage our leading-edge technology to design and deliver differentiated and high-quality flash memory products to the fast-growing connected embedded device markets.
We see growth opportunities in multiple areas where Spansion has a well-established customer base, specifically in automotive, industrial, communications, consumer gaming and connected home products. The flash markets in these segments is growing as another billion users come to the Internet over the next few years and each user has multiple devices in their daily lives.
Spansion leads in today's embedded flash market with around 37% market share. We made a strategic decision a couple years ago to focus on embedded markets, which have memory requirements that align with our strengths in delivering products that require durability, high quality, longevity and differentiation. We do not place much focus on the PC business and handset segments.
Q: What are the new growth areas that Spansion's NOR flash business is targeting to compensate for slowing sales in handsets and PCs?
A: Graphic-rich, intelligent and connected electronics in embedded markets are driving needs for high performance memory from Spansion. Flash technology is a key ingredient in all the digital devices we rely on in our daily lives. As applications become more intelligent, automated and graphic-rich, systems will become more complex and require memory-intensive solutions. Examples of opportunities for flash include:
The growing infrastructure that supports device connectivity, making it possible for users to access data quickly or retrieve from their virtual storage where they want, when they want. The immediacy of that experience depends on high-performance flash memory in the devices, and in the network equipment as well. Connectivity is enabling exciting possibilities for digital services, data capturing and sharing, communications and collaboration and will drive our addressable market along the way.
Security and keeping data and content secure. Non-volatile Flash memory and special security features in our products enable manufacturers to keep their systems more secure.
Enhanced Safety. Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) is gaining popularity around the world, including China. Flash memory technology plays a critical role in helping drivers control the vehicle more safely and easily.
Q: How do you differentiate your NOR products from competitors such as Micron?
A: Spansion is focused on specialty memory for embedded systems. Our flexible asset-lite model, diversified revenue base, differentiated products and persistent commitment to Spansion grade quality and customer service differentiate us in the market. We have made two recent announcements that demonstrate our leading-edge technology.
First, we announced the industry's first 8Gb NOR product at 45nm. Our proprietary 45nm MirrorBit technology and our unique design architecture allow us to deliver the fastest read and program speeds for NOR flash memory in the industry.
Second, we announced our new eCT, a new high-performance, low-power and cost-effective NOR flash memory technology optimized for integration with advanced logic process in system-on-a-chip products. Earlier this week, we announced with UMC a joint technology development and licensing agreement to develop integrated logic and flash to enable creation of high-performance and low power electronics. We will integrate UMC's 40nm LP logic process with Spansion's proprietary eCT technology. Spansion eCT is a key enabler of the company's programmable systems solutions (PSS), which combine flash and logic to enhance processing performance for applications that are memory, processing and MIPS intensive.
Both of these technology advancements will create advanced products in the future.
In addition, customers continue to recognize us for our technology and service, as evidenced by the many Supplier of the Year awards we earned last year from customers around the world. Our on-time delivery is at an all time high, ahead of industry benchmarks, and our recent customer satisfaction survey showed we are outpacing our direct competitors by 6%.
Q: Last year Spansion announced your new SLC NAND products. Would you provide updates about the business development
A: Spansion is making solid progress in NAND, delivering high quality NAND products, our embedded expertise and long-term product support.
In 2012, we had over 130 NAND design wins for customers, requiring SLC-NAND for platforms such as network communications products, game consoles, set-top box platforms, and industrial applications such as surveillance cameras, clinical diagnostics, and factory automation. We ramped up our design wins quickly and secured US$12 million revenue by the end of 2012, after launching in mid-year.
We are optimistic about our NAND business for 2013.
Q: Would you tell us about Spansion's overall business outlook for 2013?
A: We continue to see growth in the flash market in 2013. 2012 was an excellent year for new product introductions from Spansion that exceeded the performance of our competitors and position us for continued growth this year. We look forward to partnering with our customers and ecosystem partners to continue delivering high-quality memory and system solutions for their products that will continue to address user experience requirements around connectivity, new user interfaces and richer content.
Spansion and UMC team up to develop products based on Spansion's embedded Charge Trap technology
Photo: Spansion
Photo: Spansion
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