Toshiba has posted its second straight quarterly profit on rising chip demand, beating analyst estimates for a loss.

Samsung in June announced plans to expand the capacity of its 12-inch chip plant in Austin with a US$3.6 billion investment, and hire 500 more workers there by 2011.

Toshiba has started construction of Fab 5 at Yokkaichi Operations, its memory production facility in Mie Prefecture, according to the company. The chip vendor also announced it has signed primary agreements with SanDisk for a new joint venture to operate the new facility.

The company has estimated revenues grew 23-25% on quarter in the second quarter of 2010, a positive increase over the guidance previously provided that revenues would be up 10-20% sequentially.

The maker of high-speed memory chips changed its focus during a downturn, from retail to direct sales to device makers and sellers, and the company's shares have soared.

Creditors rescued Hynix after it almost collapsed in 2001 under the weight of its debts. However, they have since struggled to find a local strategic buyer for Hynix, having excluded foreigners from the auction because of worries about sensitive technology information leaking outside of the country.

Toshiba, Hynix, Micron and Elpida all moved up at least one position in the top 20 list, with Elpida jumping six spots.

Intel has announced that Intel-Micron Flash Technologies are in mass production of their 25nm NAND flash memory, and Intel is shipping in volume to customers.

The factory will be Toshiba's fifth at its manufacturing base in Yokkaichi in western Japan. It will initially be used to produce conventional NAND flash chips, but Toshiba plans to expand this to new types of 3D memory where chips and components are stacked vertically.

Micron officials did not return phone calls to the Statesman, but Boise fire spokeswoman Lynn Hightower said regular operations at the Micron campus were not affected.

The 32GB model is being positioned for use as a boot drive for basic setups, whereas the the larger 256GB SSD is reccomended for use in more high-end systems.

Toshiba, one of Japan's largest electronics companies, has said it expects net losses of 20 billion yen (US$215 million) for the fiscal year ending March 2010. That's down from its previous estimtae of 50 billion yen.

Pacific Crest Securities has downgraded SanDisk to underperform, saying the maker of memory chips may be headed for a period of flat market dynamics.

Ultimately, only ramped up production will drive SSD prices down, and that is not expected to begin until 2011.

Micron Technology will bring faster interfaces to its enterprise SSD (solid-state disk) line in June when it begins shipping its P300 drives to makers of storage equipment.

In the NAND flash rankings for 2009, there is a surprise vendor on the list. According to Web-Feet Research, Samsung Electronics remained the leader in NAND flash in terms of share, followed in order by Toshiba and then SanDisk. SanDisk was ahead of Micron, Hynix and Intel.

Toshiba plans to spend 15 billion yen (US$160 million) in 2010 to build a test production line for advanced flash memory chips, according to the Nikkei business daily. The NAND flash memory vendor has already ordered chip-making equipment from ASML to produce microchips with circuitry widths of less than 25 nanometres.

Smart Modular Technologies has reported a profit for the fiscal second quarter as improved customer demand and higher pricing lifted revenues by nearly half.

On the heels of OCZ Technology's release of its first sub-US$100 solid-state drive (SSD), Intel has revealed it is shipping a US$125 SSD called the X25-V Value SATA SSD.

Applied Materials CFO George Davis recently remarked there is reason to think the second half will see orders from Tier 2 DRAM players, and from some additional segments of the market, in particular NAND flash.

Researchers from Toshiba and the Keio University in Tokyo have jointly created a 1TB SSD prototype the size of a small postage stamp, consisting of 128 NAND flash memory chips and one controller chip.

Creditors of memory-chip maker Hynix Semiconductor plan to name a new chief executive to replace Kim Jong-Kap, whose three-year term ends in March 2010.

Toshiba will spend 800 billion yen (US$8.9 billion) to build a new microchip plant, reviving plans that it had put on hold amid sluggish sales, according to the Nikkei business daily. It may start construction of the new factory for NAND flash memory chips as early as this summer, aiming to begin operations in spring 2011.

While analysts are bullish on Micron Technology's acquisition of Numonyx in a US$1.3 billion stock deal, a lack of details on the takeover and a market in decline had investors shying away Wednesday.

Hynix Semiconductor has claimed it has developed a NAND flash memory chip using 26nm process technology, designed to hold 64 gigabits of data.

The world's top two DRAM chipmakers have reiterated their bullish stance toward the market for 2010. But Hynix expressed a slight concern regarding oversupply at a time when rivals are ramping up their production.

"I think in the next four years or five years, it's probably going to be the case that NAND will no longer be the storage medium," said a flash memory analyst with Forward Insights. "Everybody's looking at alternatives."

Prosecutors have arrested two executives from Applied Materials in Seoul, South Korea on charges of allegedly stealing Samsung process technology details and passing them on to Hynix.

Intel wants to avoid the cyclical, market share game in the NAND flash chip sector against the likes of Samsung, Hynix and Toshiba. But Intel dropped hints it wants to unseat Samsung as the No. 1 player in SSDs.

Toshiba has announced that Toshiba LSI Package Solutions will transfer its memory backend function from Fukuoka to Yokkaichi, Mie prefecture, in order to be closer to Toshiba's main memory production facility, Yokkaichi Operations. The move will take place by November.

According to Intel and Micron, the 25nm, 8Gb device is currently sampling, and is expected to enter mass production before the second half of 2010.

Apple's iPad device may significantly increase demand for components such as touch screens and memory chips, especially if it succeeds in creating a new product category and spawning competitors, according to industry analysts.

The Japanese conglomerate, whose business encompasses everything from memory chips to household electronics to nuclear power plants, has said it booked a much smaller loss in the October-December quarter than a year earlier.

Toshiba, which competes with Samsung Electronics in chips and with Areva and General Electric in nuclear power, is likely to miss the market consensus figure for its quarterly operating profit, according to the Nikkei business daily.

Since the new device apparently will rely heavily on NAND flash for its computing and storage needs, and because the most recent products Apple has produced have tended to sell very well, the NAND flash industry may be looking at a major stabilizing factor.

MoneyToday, citing unnamed industry sources, said that Samsung was expected to set this year's capital expenditure for the semiconductor business at about 7 trillion won (US$6.1 billion). The Korean vendor is also planning a new chip production line in its domestic plant, marking the first time in years that it would add a line.

Kingston Technology is recalling certain models of its DataTraveler secure USB flash drives in order to update firmware on the drives after a security company found a flaw that could allow a hacker to gain access to a user's password.

South Korea's antitrust agency on Dec. 30, 2009 said it has found no evidence to back allegations that makers of flash memory chips were engaged in international price fixing, after investigating the issue for nearly three years.

Micron Technology swung to a fiscal first-quarter profit—its first in three years—on higher sales volumes and prices as well as a large prior-year write-down.

Micron said that it will be ''shortly'' sampling a 2x-nm NAND device. It did not specify the exact node, but some expect the company will disclose more details in early 2010.