Intel Corp, the world's largest maker of semiconductors, has created a faster version of its flash-memory chips for mobile phones that may help the company regain market share from Samsung Electronics Co.
The microchips write data into memory cells at more than three times the speed of previous models, Intel vice president Darin Billerbeck said in an interview on Thursday in San Francisco. Intel built the chip because of competition in an industry that is like being in a "dog fight with everyone," Billerbeck said.
Intel faces the challenge of convincing investors that it can take on South Korea's Samsung Electronics in making flash chips used to access picture and music files in mobile phones with built-in cameras and Web access. Intel surrendered its top spot for flash-memory chips to Samsung in 2003.
"Samsung is still too far ahead for Intel to be a concern," said Yang Jun Won, who owns Samsung Electronics shares amid the equivalent of US$400 million he manages at Macquarie-IMM Investment Management Co in Seoul.
Samsung had 28 percent of the flash memory market in the fourth quarter, with sales of US$1.01 billion, said El Segundo, California-based researcher iSuppli Corp. That represented a jump of 11 percent from the preceding quarter. Intel, the second-biggest in the market, had 16 percent, with US$643 million in sales, the research firm said.
Intel's new flash-memory chips can be attractive to phone makers because of the speedier access to information, Billerbeck said at the Intel Developer Forum. The chips will write at speeds of up to 500 kilobits a second, instead of 140 kilobits for older ones.
"Many newer-generation mobile phones not only are communicators, but also MP3 players, personal digital assistants, and digital still cameras," said Mark DeVoss, an analyst at iSuppli Corp.
Samsung, which makes a different kind of flash memory called NAND, is expected to benefit from a market that's expected to grow 26 percent from 2003 to 2008, more than twice as fast as the 10 percent gain in the type of chips that Intel makes, according to iSuppli.
"From an Intel perspective the question is, what are you doing about the whole of that US$17 billion market that might go to US$30 billion?" Billerbeck said. "We had a bad strategy."
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
UNWAVERING: Paraguay remains steadfast in its support of Taiwan, but is facing growing pressure at home and abroad to switch recognition to Beijing, Pena said Paraguayan President Santiago Pena has pledged to continue enhancing cooperation with Taiwan, as he and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed opposition to any unilateral change to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait using force, Japanese media reported on Saturday. Kishida yesterday completed a trip to France, Brazil and Paraguay, his first visit to South America since taking office in 2021. After the Japanese leader and Pena spoke for more than an hour on Friday, exchanging views on the situation in East Asia in the face of China’s increasing military pressure on Taiwan, they affirmed that “unilateral attempts to change the