Fri, Dec 13, 2002 page11

• AMD aims for larger slice of flash-memory market

  LOCAL LINK Advanced Micro Devices hopes to increase its sales in Taiwan and globally by having Kuen Chaang Uppertech Corp distribute its chips

  • By Bill Heaney / STAFF REPORTER
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  Aiming to gain a larger slice of the domestic flash-memory market, Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) has selected a new local distributor of the chips used for easy and fast information storage in such devices as cellphones and digital cameras.

  "As consumer demand for 3C products such as digital cameras, cellular phones and games consoles continues to rise, it stimulates the demand for flash memory," Joe Krystofik, an AMD vice president, said yesterday.

  "We have chosen Kuen Chaang Uppertech Corp as our new flash memory distributor because of their professionalism," he said.

  Krystofik was in Taipei to name Uppertech, a chip distributor, as AMD's fourth local distributor for flash-memory products.

  AMD has 15 percent to 20 percent of the global flash-memory market, trailing its largest rival Intel Corp which has a 30 percent share.

  One local analyst says AMD has a long way to go in Taiwan.

  "Taiwan is very important for flash memory because it makes a lot of personal digital assistants [PDAs] and mobile-phone hand-sets," said George Wu (吳裕良), a chip industry analyst at Primasia Securities Co. "So far AMD's flash memory has not been very common in Taiwan," Wu said.

  The last two years have been very bad for the flash-memory market, but next year will be a better year for all manufacturers as sales grow of devices that need the new memory standard, Wu said.

  Krystofik said he was optimistic about his company's prospects next year in the local market, and with good reason.

  According to the government-funded Market Intelligence Center, Taiwan will ship 27 million mobile-phone handsets this year, more than double last year's figure. And next year that figure is expected to be more than 40 million.

  Manufacturers are also expected to pump out 10 million digital cameras next year, another device that relies on flash memory.

  As for PDAs, local companies will ship out 3.15 million of the electronic devices this year, accounting for nearly 15 percent of global PDA production.

  The major makers are constantly working to create more efficient chips to outdo the competition.

  Last year AMD introduced a new flash-memory technology called MirrorBit that doubles the amount of data that can be stored on the same-sized chip. Last fall Intel introduced its newest technology -- called StrataFlash -- which layers memory on a chip to increase capacity.

  So far, however, AMD has not been able to convince the market of the benefits of its new technology.

  "AMD must convince customers that the technology is robust and announce significant design wins quickly to gain traction in the market," said Richard Gordon, memory analyst at international research firm Gartner Inc.

  "The importance of MirrorBit to AMD's flash memory future cannot be overstated -- it is a critical technology if AMD is to have any chance of countering Intel's market share gains on the back of its StrataFlash technology," Gordon said.
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