14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like current marketing conditions and customer preferences are creating a fairly clear picture of the future, as far as the NAND Flash memory market is concerned anyway.
Digitimes has published its most recent report regarding the likeliest evolution of the NAND Flash chip storage segment.
Granted, this is not so much an unexpected turn of events as it is an educated guess based on the current situation.
Simply put, the NAND Flash demand is going to rise, especially as far as memory cards and USB flash drives go.
Then again, this is not so much indicative of a promising future, as it is another way of saying current demand is weak enough that the only direction it can take is up.
Of course, consumers probably could show an even greater apathy towards the already stacked NAND Flash chip inventories.
Nevertheless, the continued rise in popularity of USB 3.0, and its replacement of USB 2.0 as standard interface, will help things along.
Solid state drives and embedded storage products are already doing rather well.
That means that only the slow demand for flash drives and memory cards has to be remedied and everything will pick up again.
The change won't become apparent until the second half of 2012 though, and even then it will be gradual instead of sudden.
Ultrabooks and tablets are the main product type with USB 3.0 support that everyone involved is counting on, although they will have to deal with their own overpricing problem first.
The only thing that will remain constant is chip pricing: contract prices for NAND chips aren't expected to rise or fall, although late 2012 may see a change here as well.
At any rate, it is the hope of chip manufacturers that SuperSpeed will enable the current oversupply of NAND chips to alleviate somewhat, even if it isn't going to happen right away.