闪存短缺改写固态硬盘市场生态

固态硬盘(SSD) 市场动态正持续发生变化，而对于LSI公司首席执行官Abhi Talwalkar而言，2013年出现的这些市场变化着实令人感到失望。因为Abhi Talwalkar希望的是Sandforce SSD控制器市场能够带来35%的成长，而不只是10%。LSI在2011年以3.7亿美金收购了新创公司Sandforce，而就在几天前，LSI被Avago以66亿美金的价格收购。 事实上，Talwalkar心中所希望的那块成长大饼，大部份都落到像三星等开始销售 SSD 的公司手中了──他们所销售的 SSD 采用的是自家的 NAND flash芯片与控制器。此外，以往向Sandforce公司购买控制器产品的一些小型独立SSD制造商，也不敌三星、Sandisk等垂直整合巨擘，开始逐渐失去原有市场了。 这种转变始于2011年。当时， NAND闪存制造商大幅削减晶圆厂设备资本支出，他们认为内存芯片市场已经供过于求了。 因此，今年的 NAND 闪存价格大约上涨了20%，Talwalkar估计。同时，闪存芯片制造商，如三星已更积极地制造与销售自家的 SSD ，因为SSD比起一般芯片更有利润。 相较于独立制造商，NAND供货商更有机会赢得这项业务，因为他们能提供更低销售价格而仍获利。例如，LSI的一家客户(即独立制造商)在今年就必须放弃把SSD卖给PC公司的几百万美元合约，因为销售价格已经远低于其成本了。 “三年前，NAND供货商在SSD市场仅占相当小的比重，而且SSD市场上大约有50家厂商吧！” Talwalkar表示。 “我 认为在接下的2-4年内，70-80%的客户端SSD都将来自 NAND 制造商，其余的则将来自5-10家独立的SSD制造商，但他们必须找到独特的营运模式以及专注于特定的垂直市场或经销模式，”他预测，并点名了几家可能的 厂商，如金士顿(Kingston)、Avant与OCZ等。(编按：OCZ也在本月初被东芝收购，SSD市场真是腥风血雨) “我并不担心闪存的成长，但问题是由谁如何布署为什么样的形式出现？”Talwalkar补充道。 本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载 本文下一页：flash短缺将持续到2015年或更久以后

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{pagination} flash短缺将持续到2015年或更久以后 市场研究公司Webfeet Research总分析师Alan Niebel表示，几家独立的SSD和控制器制造商──包括Stec、Smart Storage、Virident、FlashSoft与Link-a-Media ── 都已经被积极抢进 SSD 市场的 NAND 芯片与PC制造商收购了。如今只剩下几家主要的独立制造商，如Fusion-io、Violin、OCZ、Skyera与Nimbus Data等。 2013年NAND闪存价格上涨的部份原因在于今夏海力士(SK Hynix)中国无锡厂发生火灾的相关报导。这场火灾仅影响到 DRAM 生产，“但许多OEM由于担心闪存短缺而争相抢购，”Niebel说 另一家市调公司Objective Analysis的flash市场资深分析师Jim Handy指出，“由于资本支出紧缩，造成目前 NAND 短缺的情况应该会从今年下半年延续到2015年中期。” “由于大家都期望IM Flash开发出以前从未尝试过的新技术──无论是高k闸极电介质或3D，都可能会是使这一短缺现象延续到2016或甚至2017的绊脚石，”Handy说。 对于LSI ，这些问题虽然棘手，但都能一一克服。Talwalkar强调，该公司目前只有大约10%的业务与闪存产品相关，而且也分散投注于不同的闪存市场。 LSI目前有17款SandForce SSD控制器的客制版本，包括一款提供给三星以及一款SanDisk所用的产品 。此外，继Fusion I/O之后，该公司也销售自有的 PCI Express卡，瞄准加速服务器应用。 对于LSI而言，2013年在业务方面的一个较大变化其实是与硬盘有关。去年，LSI的客户希捷科技(SeagateTechnologies)由于在泰国水患冲击硬盘业务时占据了一个有利的供应链位置，使其于LSI的整体HDD业务中占据了主要的部份。 希捷科技的好运气有助于刺激LSI在2012年的发展，为其带来23%的成长率。希捷的定位与LSI的HDD的相关业务在今年逐渐放缓，冲击了LSI的整体营收与利润，从而使两项业务在2013年的前九个月分别下跌约10%与50%。 本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载 编译：Susan Hong 参考英文原文：Flash Shortages Drive SSD Shifts，by Rick Merritt

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• 美商OCZ破产，固态硬盘市场进入战国时代
• HDD瘦身变超薄，欲从SSD手中夺回失地uESesmc

{pagination} Flash Shortages Drive SSD Shifts LSI's loss is Samsung's gain Rick Merritt SAN JOSE, Calif. – The dynamics of the solid-state state drive market are shifting, and for Abhi Talwalkar it's been a disappointing shift in 2013. The chief executive of LSI hoped the market for SSD controllers from Sandforce, a startup he purchased in 2011 for $370 million, would grow as much as 35% this year. Instead it grew just 10%. The growth Talwalkar hoped for went mostly to companies such as Samsung that started selling SSDs using its own NAND flash chips and controllers. Increasingly the relatively small, independent SSD makers Sandforce had been selling some of its controllers to are losing business to vertically integrated giants such as Samsung, Sandisk, and others. The shift got started in 2011. That's when NAND flash makers cut back capex on fab equipment, believing the memory chip market was in oversupply. As a result NAND flash prices went up about 20% this year, Talwalkar estimates. At the same time, flash chip makers such as Samsung have been more aggressively making and selling their own SSDs because they represent a more profitable business than chips. The NAND vendors are winning business because they can make money at lower selling prices than the independents. For example, one of the independents that is a customer for LSI had to walk away from a multi-million dollar deal selling SSDs to a large PC company this year when the prices went below its costs. "Three years ago the NAND guys had a fairly small share in SSDs and there were perhaps 50 players in SSDs," said Talwalkar in an interview with EE Times. "I believe in two to four years 70-80% of client SSDs will come from NAND makers and the rest will come from five to 10 independent SSD makers that have unique business models and/or focus on certain verticals markets or distribution models," he predicted, noting Kingston, Avant, and OCZ among the strong survivors today. "I have no worries about the growth of flash, the question is about in what form it gets deployed" and by whom, Talwalkar added. Several independent SSD and controller makers –including Stec, Smart Storage, Virident, FlashSoft and Link-a-Media -- have already been acquired by NAND chip and PC makers as part of their efforts to get into SSDs, said Alan Niebel, principal of market watcher Webfeet Research (Monterey, Calif.). Top among the remaining independents are Fusion-io, Violin, OCZ, Skyera and Nimbus Data, he said. The NAND flash price rises in 2013 were in part fueled by reports of a fire this summer at a large SK Hynix fab in Wuxi, China. The fire only affected DRAM production, "but many OEMs bought [flash] on the fear of shortage," said Niebel "Just based on capex [retrenchments] today's budding NAND shortage should run from the second half of this year to mid-2015," said Jim Handy, a veteran flash analyst at Objective Analysis (Los Gatos, Calif.). "Since everyone except IM Flash is converting to new technologies that they have never tried before -- either high-k gate dielectrics or 3-D -- there are likely to be a lot of stumbling blocks that would push the end of the shortage out to 2016 or even 2017," said Handy. For LSI, the issues are painful but manageable. Only about ten percent of its business is currently in flash-related products and it has diverse bets in the flash market, said Talwalkar. LSI now makes 17 custom versions of its Sandforce SSD controllers, including ones for Samsung and SanDisk. It also sells its own PCI Express flash cards for accelerating server applications, following in the footsteps of market pioneer Fusion I/O. For LSI a bigger shift in 2013 came in its larger business related to hard disk drives. Last year LSI customer Seagate commanded a bigger portion of the HDD business given its favorable supply-chain position in the wake of Thai floods. Seagate's good fortune helped spike LSI's 2012 growth to 23 percent last year. Seagate's position and LSI's HDD-related business moderated this year, impacting LSI's overall revenues and profits which slumped about 10 and 50 percent respectively in the first nine months of 2013.