NAND flash suppliers have recently cut capacity to reflect weak market demand, causing flash prices to rise.
Average pricing for 16-Gbit density multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash rose to $4.10 in the second quarter of 2009, up from $1.80 in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the research firm.
"The recent increase in NAND flash pricing has benefitted memory chip makers, but also has served as a major damper on the market for SSDs used in notebooks," said Michael Yang, senior analyst for mobile and emerging memories at iSuppli, in a statement. "About 90 percent of an SSD's value consists of NAND flash memory, so with the pricing for such chips rising, consumer and corporate adoption of solid-state storage has been slowed."
SSD sales dropping as NAND prices jump
Posted on Sunday, July 12 2009 @ 0:25 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
iSuppli reports sales of solid state disks are dropping as prices of 16Gb MLC NAND flash memory chips have more than doubled since Q4 2008: