Daaaamn, talk about clout. If
DigiTimes' sources are correct, then Samsung, the world's primary supplier of flash memory, just told its non-Apple customers to
suck it in favor of a "large batch of orders" it received from Cupertino. The order is said to be for 50-million "8Gb-equivalent" (we assume they mean gigabyte, or GB) NAND chips "mainly for use in Apple's iPhone." This order follows a June procurement for 25 million of the same chips. In response, Samsung has reportedly told its lesser customers that it would "sharply cut supply" of NAND to them while the order is being fulfilled. The shortage is compounded by Samsung lowering its manufacturing output in April and May in an attempt to reduce oversupply. Still, if these numbers are true (they seem high and
DigiTimes can be hit or miss with its Apple sources) then the world is about to be awash in iPhone 3Gs come July 11th.
Update: We've given the Gigabits vs. Gigabytes a bit more thought. If it's 50 million 8Gbit chips as stated, they would divide evenly across about 2.1 million 8GB iPhone 3Gs plus another 2.1 million 16GB models. A reasonable production run for Apple's global launch but an order which shouldn't be so taxing on Samsung's production capability. Something doesn't add up.
posted Jul 2nd 2008 6:42AM
cool
There is nothing cool about this at all. This could easily lead to delayed production of other devices, which could lead to higher prices down the road for consumers.
I think that Samsungs customers should thank the company for its obvious commitment to them by cultivating other sources of NAND chips. Besides it's just stupid to have it all come from one place anyway.
I'll translate for fred: Baaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwww!!!!!
"Baaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwww!!!!!"
Wha?
Hehe, ya, the Samsung Instinct already sold out... i bet by the time they re-vamp up producion, apple will be looking up with their pants down... http://www.pmptoday.com/2008/07/01/sprint-instinct-sells-out-historic-ev-do-phone/
sorry to burst your anti-apple bubble, but walt mossberg already put the kibosh on the instinct. it sucks.
Walt Mossberg? Are you f'n kidding me? Wait, let me try something:
Did you hear? Sprint says the Instinct is better than the iPhone...
I will be one of the first to say the iPhone is a much better phone than the Instinct or the Dare, but don't be a moron and refer to a bias article by one of the biggest Apple fanboys in order to make the iPhone look superior.
@Dubbinator
clearly, you are not in touch with reality. mossberg is largely considered to be one of the most unbiased tech reviewers for one of the most unbiased publications in the world.
however, you missed my point, so even if you disagree, it's not really up for argument whether he has more influence than anyone on the market - ergo, his bad review will kill the instinct. which is all i was saying.
and i think you've confused david pouge with walt mossberg anyway.
Monopsony power. Learn it.
There are other suppliers of NAND, you know.
really? what eles did you think was in the iphone? SD memory?
just a coup[le of days left
hurray
You also have to remember, 16 GB iPhones use two 8 GB chips, and I am assuming more 16 GB phones will be made than the 8 GB. This brings this 'staggering number' closer to a sane number.
This is VERY true...however I think that more people will be seeking the 8GB iPhone.
No it doesn't, the reason the iPod Touch's capacity is double the iPhone's is that it uses two chips, e.g. the 32GB uses two 16GB chips.
The iPhone can only physically take one chip at a time.
Magnificen7 is wrong, connorcam is right. There is only room for one chip in the iPhone, and there's room for two chips in the Touch. That's why the Touch is available with 32 GB and the iPhone isn't.
Zak, I believe you are right, but that was for the v1 iPhone. Are we sure that v2 only has room for 1 chip?
I thin they're also forgetting about the iPod Touches...won't those be using the same storage method as the iPhone?
This seems like a great opportunity for SanDisk and similar companies to sign new contracts, and that makes me happy since Samsung was getting too big for it's own good.
God damn lazy-good-for-nothing people like you.
What the hell do you mean "Samsung was getting too big for it's own good".
It is because of Samsung's size and capability that you are able to enjoy cool gadgets like iPhone, and all the other stuff out there. If Samsung wasn't as big as it is now you will not be getting LCD TVs, portable players and smart phones at the current prices it would have been atleast double due to shortage of basic technologies.
I know Samsung, It won't keep other customers waiting for long. Their nand manufacturing is uber-cool and can cater to the market very easily.
chill out Girish, I fail to see how the desire for competition makes the dude lazy. competition in the marketplace is good for consumers. period. if you don't get that, you obviously dropped econ 101 after sleeping through the first class. if samsung drops supply, and other suppliers can step up their game and fill in the gaps, this leads to stiffer market competition, and lower prices. plus a boatload of iPhones. if only AT&T wasn't asking us to bend over with those monthly plans....
Business is Business, Samsung would be foolish to turn down such a big order, Apple or not. It's one of the reasons why Samsung is so big today.
Plus, I'm sure that a lot of these will end up in the Touch as well. Not sure what NAND the nano uses, but it may end up in there, too.
Impact the price of other flash devices ?
Don't they use the same memory in the iPod Touch?
Don't they use the same memory in iPod Touch?
After the iPhone, the rest of the handset world doesn't matter. Supply the best, forget the rest.
It wouldn't make much sense for Samsung to concern themselves with supplying chips to some companies that are only going to sell a few thousand smartphones. Maybe Apple should buy out Samsung and cut off all of Samsung's supply of NAND to other handset companies. I'm suspecting that would probably be illegal.
Err... Apple buying Samsung? They rake in US$90.2 billion in revenue and have US$267.4 billion in assets. And that's Samsung Electronics, there are a TON more Samsung businesses AAPL on the other hand brings in US$24.01b.
I think you GREATLY underestimate the size of Samsung. Samsung and their subsidiaries generate 25% of South Korea's GDP alone. Apple are small fish compared to what Samsung do. They are much, much more than a couple of LCD TVs and a mobile phone.
Yeah? Then what else are they?
Well, at one point they built the world's tallest building, for example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Engineering_&_Construction
@Daza I think you SLIGHTLY overestimate Samsung's size. They generate 20% of South Korea's GDP, not 25%. [source: http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10225944]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Group
They're the second largest conglomerate in the world. (first is GE)
@Harkonian:
Don't get technical! In a discussion like this 20% and 25% is exactly the same.
"Well, at one point they built the world's tallest building, for example."
And my washing machine!
So Samsung is going to have these NAND chips put into a product that millions of people want? I don't see this as a huge problem. Current Apple products probably use a large proportion of NAND chips anyway. It's all about demand, and I'm not very surprised. If the choice was to give Apple only a fraction, say 50%, of Samsung's manufacturing output, then there'd be a huge shortage of iPods Touches, Nanos, and iPhones, while Samsung's other customers may not be in short supply at all due to there being less demand. Who knows.
First....it could be all of the above: Using the Chips for a number of devices.
But secondly, the big order could really be a strategy of Apple (some know they are back-stabbers) to cut down supply to other "iphone-similar" products making their products the only to be available in great numbers.
Thirdly, anyone knowing the rule of thumb: Demand regulates price, concludes that this big order will make NAND as cheap as never but Apple will most probably not pass it down to the customers/us (did I mention the back-stabbing theory? *wink*)
price tag?
It doesnt mean 50 million iPhones, just means that those 50 mil chips will be spread across all products from the 8gig nano to the 32gig itouch.
Flash manufacturers use terms of gigabit, not gigabyte. The original article islikely correct.
"we assume they mean gigabyte, or GB"
What use would Apple have for 1GB NAND chips, except for perhaps the iPod shuffle and *maybe* the iPod nano 4GB?
I know these companies prefer to use bits instead of bytes, but 50 million 1GB chips does not make a lot of sense.
It's possible that DigiTimes is using the term correctly. However, Apple has historically placed orders of 500 Million 4Gbit NAND chips at a time without the equivalent downstream impact on other Sammy customers. So an order of 50m 8Gbit chips shouldn't be such a big deal.
http://www.eetasia.com/register/login.php?type=ART&jumpvalue=8800463231&DD=&refilljp=L0FSVF84ODAwNDYzMjMxXzQ5OTQ4Nl8zZDZlYjQyNTIwMDcwNV9uby5IVE09&cat_id=499486
Having said that, if it's 50m 8Gbit chips then that divides evenly across about 2.1 million 8GB and 2.1 million 16GB iPhone 3Gs which is reasonable.
Thomas
So they cut supply? Wonderful.
So they cut supply? Wonderful.
I didn't refresh or anything. Wonderful.
Looks that those non-Apple manufactures can add +2 months to their launch schedules since Jobso is taking all the flashes. Will affect phones like Nokia N96 etc.
8Gb is 8 Gigabits and you'll need 8 of them to make one 8GB iPhone. So take your total and divide it by 8 and see of that doesn't make more sense.
Good I would like to walk into an AT&T store and get one, not camp out the night before.
talk about reducing oversupply... they sure accomplished that...
Talk about aiming high
Oh Samsung, you know you lost customers in that move. Ye are not the only supplier of flash NAND chips...(at least I believe so). Seriously though? A dick move to appease Apple Corp...shame
What if no one wants the new iPhone 3G?
This is unbelieveable. Apple shows its arrogance once again...now hear me out instead of just low ranking me based on that fanboys. Apple knew this damn phone was going to be "huge" atleast with all this hype and constant marketing and the success of the previous gen iPhone. They knew they were going to release the newest gen in July. They should have been putting in smaller orders all along or hey, why not put them in in April and May when Samsung was cutting production to not flood the market? This just seems to be another selfish way to draw attention to themselves and screwing the competition at the same time. I'm all for competition but when a company begins to throw its weight around and unfairly corner the market making it very difficult for the competition like this...that's just shaddy.
Actually....it would be very interesting if AT+T actually killed this phone before it even went on sale with the announcement of it's outrageous pricing plan and they're stuck with all these phones that they can't sell even at their "subsadized" price.
I'm pretty sure Apple didn't go up to a company 1000000 times their size and demand that they divert all of their attention to them. They placed an order, and Samsung obliged. You really don't need to inject all of this drama into a simple business deal.
"They should have been putting in smaller orders all along or hey, why not put them in in April and May when Samsung was cutting production to not flood the market?" LOL okay! Because that's how business deals really work! Do you really think that Apple hasn't produced a bunch of 3G iPhones already? They're ramping up production due to anticipated sales, not because some douche at Apple forgot to send the design out to production companies.
LOW RANK FOR YOU!
Also, and more importantly, do you really think it's Apple's responsibility to worry about Samsung's production loads? Do you also seriously believe that Apple is worried about other companies not getting their "fair share" of chip production? Trust me, LG, Palm, and RIM aren't thinking about helping the others, either.
Well after reading your comments and doing some research I found that Samsung owns about 41 percent of the market currently and with this diversion of assets towards Apple others will go elsewhere , which I also learned that there are actually others in this market especially Toshiba/San Disk who have new facilities comming online shortly who could actually benefit from this substantially. The more important question however, should go to Mr. Ricker and his infinite Engadget resources and report on what kind of monthly output numbers would Samsung achieve and how much of their production would be diverted and put on hold to accomodate this order to actually assess this situation effectively.
CPO: "I buy all the original General Custer blankets you have!"
Her sidekick: "Shouldn't we leave some for the other companies?"
CPO: "Um, I guess you're right. Let them take what they need, and we take the rest. All of it!"
What if no one wants air or water?
Or gingerbread.
8 Gigabit NAND chips doesn't make sense. Are we to believe that the 16GB iPhone 3G has 16 NAND chips floating around in there? I just don't think it has the physical space.
Methinks it really is 8 GB.
Oh, but it does make sense.
http://www.samsung.com/us/business/semiconductor/newsView.do?news_id=753
I miss the old days when Engadget found cool gadgets and wacky stuff (I guess the Peter days), not just boring updates on iPhones all day long.
I agree. Plus how many mini laptop posts will there be?
this is an article about samsung.
if i read correctly, the world iphone only appears once in the article.
but whatever, its cool to hate on apple for no reason.
Lamp, you read incorrectly, the word iPhone appeared 4 times and you are an idiot.
wait, you mean the world isn't being taken over by mini laptops and iPhones?
Shhh, you'd beter be quiet or Ryan will come around and have a crying bitchfest about how, if you don't like the 24/7 apple coverage, you are welcome to go elsewhere.
Generally, manufacturers like to use only 8 flash chips per device rather than 16. I'm taking a stab in the dark here, but since Samsung has had 16 Gb flash chips in production for over a year, the iPhone 16 GB is probably using 16 Gb chips. So this order is likely going 100% to 8 GB devices.
Actually, manufacturers like to use 4 dice, not 8. This is because 4 dice will fit in a single package, while you need a more expensive double-stack for 8 dice.
Apple is going to witness one of the biggest FLOPS in marketing history with the iPhone 3G launch. The restrictions and pricing by the carriers like AT&T, Rogers and others will kill any interest in them.
People aren't going to BUY something that they're essentially asked to lock themselves in a high-priced LEASE. Customers are getting smart and to choose not being able to choose, isn't going to happen.
Another post I agree with. I mean the iPhone is a great device, but as we get closer to release, more crap comes to surface. There WILL be those that don't get it for $199 and $29; also plans are going up. In the end I think many iPhone users might stay with the first iPhone, at least for a while. They will have cheaper plans and not have to worry about going into an AT&T store and hearing "I am sorry, you are not eligible for the $199 price."
Believe me, people ARE dumb enough! Peer pressure, "being Hip" and all the Hype / conditioning (like through this site) are doing a great job to let people plunge into any contract they have to just to get that iPhone :o)
I agree as well; While the "hip" effect and "peer pressure" do come to play, fact of the matter is gas is now $5/gal and we are in a recession; people will think twice when it comes to spending over $100/mo on phone plans... that was only $70 a couple of month ago.
you're missing the point.
it's not "hype" or "peer-pressure" or "marketing" or any of that nonsense.
It's the iPhone. of course it will sell. (with the exception of Rogers totally outrageous crap) people are willing to pay more for an experience that is simply "not craptastic"
It's not for everyone, just like Macs certainly aren't for everyone, but there's a huge piece of the population that *has (at least some) expendable income* and wants a user experience that's worth a shit. at least large enough to make a hell of a profit.
NOT just used for iPhones ! idiots.
Don't worry about the rest of the world. There's no shortage of NAND chips, as evidenced by the mentioning of Samsung reducing production because of oversupply.
...its all about the money!
Although I won't speculate as to the validity of the rumor, I have no doubt that "8 Gbit equivalent" refers to 1 GByte's worth of Flash capacity, though this does not imply that Apple is buying 1 GByte parts. Because the memory industry sells parts of varying density (ie, capacity), they typically use a standard unit of "bit equivalents" to determine the total number of bits being shipped which doesn't necessarily correlate to the number of components being shipped. For example, a single 4 GByte part would be counted as FOUR 8Gbit-equivalents.
Hope this helps!
Normally, 8Gb means single die size. It might have 4 dies in a chip. Two 4-die chips or one 8-die chip will make it 8GB.
there is no way this is for the first batch.
They are releasing in a week and a half... you really think thats enough time to assemble and ship 4 million phones?
A more reasonable guess is that this is for round 2 or iphone shipments.
Argh. My Comment disappeared?
This is a fair amount of silicon wafer capacity.
Using Michael Hackerott's Die Per Wafer Calculator (Google it) with a 160 mm2 die we get 377 die per wafer. Even if the yield is 100% that makes 132,626 300 mm wafers! That is at least 6.63 weeks of production at 20,000 wafer starts per week.
Given the 25 million previous order Apple must have taken a bite out of the Flash production schedule.
I'm guessing this is for a new gen of ipod/nano/touch and to help supply the high demand the Iphone will have in the long term. This is going to be a pretty interesting year for Apple. My guess is we will see a touch based Ipod nano's and maybe even a high capacity hard drive based ipod classic/touch.
using 8gbit chips in 8 or 16 GB devices doesn't add up
Trade regulators should be a cap on the per centage of inventory a company can buy from another. That way a single company can't dry up the market to limit the amount of available products from competition. That way people aren't forced to buy the one because it's the only thing in stores.
so we won't get the 2.0 update until next friday(for those who already have an iphone)? :-/
i want more ppictures!!!!