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Memory Makers Plan to Cut NAND Flash Production

anandtech.com

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Re: Memory Makers Plan to Cut NAND Flash Production

#21

Post by mises »

tooltalk wrote: post #16
mikhailt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please provide sources to the NDRC case, that's why I asked in the first place about why this isn't collusion. My understanding is limited to the original 2006 case where these companies were in fact charged and fined by Department of Justice, that's not a made up story and I provided the source to that. Telling me "no proof of collusion" without any source is the same as making stuff up. Technically, we're in 2019 b…

Google "china ndrc dram price fixing -digitimes" If you are citing Wiki, you probably know very little about the older 2006 case. You seem to make haste assumption on what, how, and who are involed this time around without any facts or understanding claims made by different parties. > Telling me "no proof of collusion" without any source is the same as making stuff up. You are the one making accusation against the DR…

I am highly suspicious of China's motivation for this. It happened at roughly the same time as news broke that the chinese stole Micron's technology. China is not exactly known for good or fair practices, and it would not be the first time they screwed over a foreign competitor and stole their tech to make a competitor.

Re: Memory Makers Plan to Cut NAND Flash Production

#22

Post by wtallis »

shaki-dora wrote: post #20
wtallis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "getting together" is entirely your own supposition. The NAND manufacturers have not made any joint announcements or otherwise admitted to any joint action. They have responded similarly to market conditions that affect all of them equally, which is to be expected whether or not they are coordinating. These announcements were completely predictable; we knew last summer that something like this would have to happe…

But they won’t be leaving the market, right? Therefore, they expect to make some profit at the expected higher price, and would stand to gain the most if all others cut production, except for them. This is a classic prisoners’ dilemma, where everyone should defect. If they don’t, it must be due to coordination, either ex- or implicitly. And because anti-trust is civil law, it criminal, the standard of poof is “prepon…

If none or only one manufacturer cut production/restricted expansion, then somebody would be leaving the market. That's how the DRAM market ended up collapsing down to just three players: When margins are too low, the smaller players can no longer afford the investment required to keep pace with technology improvements. A short-term desperate play for market share in conditions where you can't turn a serious profit just means you only get to play the game for one more round unless other business units will cover your loss.

This is not an efficient market. Large changes in supply have lead times on the order of years, and demand cannot be accurately predicted that far out. Months-long oversupply and shortage conditions are unavoidable. The costs of entry get significantly higher with each generation. A two generation old NAND fab cannot be operated profitably even after all the construction and R&D costs have been recouped.

Re: Memory Makers Plan to Cut NAND Flash Production

#24

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Re: Memory Makers Plan to Cut NAND Flash Production

#25

Post by wnevets »

tooltalk wrote: post #5
reacharavindh wrote: post #4

> three major manufacturers of NAND memory — Intel, Micron, and SK Hynix — have announced that they will be taking measures to address the oversupply Isn't that illegal? To fix the market by colluding and price fixing? How is this different from the act that Mercedes, BMW and VW are getting fined for for colluding to not release emissions tech?

it's illegal if and only if it can be proven that they coordinated their production cut. They all respond to the same changing market conditions -- they can't just continue increasing their production when the price continues its downward spiral. Further, the largest producer Samsung hasn't joined the foray yet according to the article. Samsung is a big variable in this -- the company's expansion created the memory g…

>This is probably not the case here.

Why do we think that? Hasn't these companies and/or industry been caught and fined for illegally coordinating their efforts before?

Re: Memory Makers Plan to Cut NAND Flash Production

#26

Post by ComplexSystems »

mikhailt wrote: post #10
tooltalk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because there is no proof of collusion. Absolutely no need for any further regulation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing They've pled guilty in the original DRAM price fixing collusion and they just got sued last year for the same charge, it's ongoing. I can only guess that laws are more lenient in Asia and they can only be charged in US after the fact. Edit: removed my opinion about getting sued again as that's off the topic.

Wow. Looks like all five manufacturers pled guilty in the original US case. Given that the suit from last year is ongoing, this seems to be a real problem in this industry.

Re: Memory Makers Plan to Cut NAND Flash Production

#27

Post by otakucode »

reacharavindh wrote: post #4

> three major manufacturers of NAND memory — Intel, Micron, and SK Hynix — have announced that they will be taking measures to address the oversupply Isn't that illegal? To fix the market by colluding and price fixing? How is this different from the act that Mercedes, BMW and VW are getting fined for for colluding to not release emissions tech?

Price fixing in the NAND market has been rife for years now. All the same companies that have previously been busted for price fixing DRAM, LCD panels, then DRAM again, are involved in NAND. There is no rational reason why SSD storage should be as expensive as mechanical storage, let alone come at a premium. No rare materials are involved. No exotic manufacturing processes are needed. It's just a stupid regular grid of NAND cells. They're used in parallel, so it's hard to make them slow, not fast. By every logical measure, we should be able to get 10TB SSDs for $100. Instead, we see mechanical hard drive manufacturers stuffing high powered intricately machined motors into helium-charged cases with platters coated with rubidium and other rare exotic materials now talking about adding lasers into the mix and somehow THAT is the cheap option for capacity.

It's really pretty absurd how far they're pushing their price-fixing, but I suppose it's been made clear to them that this time they won't be busted for it. South Koreas president closed the investigation into it shortly before being jailed for corruption, and I haven't heard anything about re-opening it.

Re: Memory Makers Plan to Cut NAND Flash Production

#28

Post by 0815test »

otakucode wrote: post #27
reacharavindh wrote: post #4

> three major manufacturers of NAND memory — Intel, Micron, and SK Hynix — have announced that they will be taking measures to address the oversupply Isn't that illegal? To fix the market by colluding and price fixing? How is this different from the act that Mercedes, BMW and VW are getting fined for for colluding to not release emissions tech?

Price fixing in the NAND market has been rife for years now. All the same companies that have previously been busted for price fixing DRAM, LCD panels, then DRAM again, are involved in NAND. There is no rational reason why SSD storage should be as expensive as mechanical storage, let alone come at a premium. No rare materials are involved. No exotic manufacturing processes are needed. It's just a stupid regular grid…

We could fix part of the problem (and plenty of other problems besides!) by working on best-of-class open-source FTL (Flash-Translation-Layer) and GC (Garbage Collection) for raw NAND or other solid-state storage. This would essentially enable us to open up the "storage" market to essentially any sort of solid-state memory, irrespective of physical implementation; such that cornering that market by intentionally limiting production of NAND Flash memory alone would likely become infeasible.

Re: Memory Makers Plan to Cut NAND Flash Production

#30

Post by tarlinian »

otakucode wrote: post #27
reacharavindh wrote: post #4

> three major manufacturers of NAND memory — Intel, Micron, and SK Hynix — have announced that they will be taking measures to address the oversupply Isn't that illegal? To fix the market by colluding and price fixing? How is this different from the act that Mercedes, BMW and VW are getting fined for for colluding to not release emissions tech?

Price fixing in the NAND market has been rife for years now. All the same companies that have previously been busted for price fixing DRAM, LCD panels, then DRAM again, are involved in NAND. There is no rational reason why SSD storage should be as expensive as mechanical storage, let alone come at a premium. No rare materials are involved. No exotic manufacturing processes are needed. It's just a stupid regular grid…

The depreciation on the equipment used to make NAND would not come close to supporting the prices you describe. In a market with a small number of players, public disclosures of capacity adjustments are sufficient to "collude". But 10 TB for $100 would require a something like a 10x reduction in pricing. None of the memory manufacturers have margins close to that good.
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