Josephine Lien, Taipei; Jackie Chang

 

After Samsung's recent announcement that it plans to set up a 12-inch wafer plant in China, South Korea-based Hynix has indicated its Wuxi factory in China will switch production from DRAM to NAND flash.

Due to increasing popularity of Apple's iPad and MacBook Air, and ultrabooks, demand for 32-128Gb NAND flash has been increasing. This has been inducing South Korea-based firms to engage in fierce competition.

Samsung announced in 2011 plans to set up a brand new 12-inch NAND flash wafer plant in China. This has shaken the industry as the plan means the supply chain of NAND flash will be focused in China. Hynix also announced the plans to expand its Wuxi plant or to build a 12-inch NAND flash wafer plant.

In fact, Hynix's market share in the global NAND flash market has been far below that of Samsung and Toshiba. Hynix is currently ranked third-place, beating US-based Micron.

Penetration of NAND flash in ultrabooks is expected to reach 30% in the future, according to recent statistics.