Two major SSD manufacturers have corrupted 6.5 billion gigabytes of chips. This is a huge figure, and the recovery of losses will take time, analysts say. As reported, the incident at the Western Digital and Kioxia factories will lead to an increase in the cost and shortage of not only the drives themselves, but also gadgets: computers, game consoles and smartphones.

Corrupted

Western Digital and Kioxia, major players in the SSD market, have admitted that a gigantic amount of flash memory has been corrupted in their factories. According to Reuters, 6.5 billion gigabytes of chips were destroyed.

In this regard, the world faces a shortage of solid-state drives, and by March they may rise in price. Director of Public Relations of the Association of Trading Companies and Producers of Electrical Household and Computer Equipment (RATEK) Anton Guskov said that the situation would have a negative impact on the Russian market.

“The story of SSD drives will affect the overall semiconductor shortage problem. When such a serious accident occurs in the market, it will be reflected in the devices themselves, ”he said.

According to the specialist, as a result, gadgets will be assembled with a delay.

“SSD memory is almost considered a commodity. And if it starts to decrease in quantity, it becomes more expensive. This means that the cost of goods will also increase,” added Guskov.

Guskov said that the widespread use of SSDs currently leads to problems with the availability of not only storage media, external and internal SSD drives, but in the future also to a reduction in computers, game consoles, smartphones and other gadgets available for purchase.

“If there is no component, then everything, the electronic device is at risk of being unavailable. And the general background is now heavy on the components as a whole. And the SSD is a really important component,” he added.

A nail in the lid

TrendForce analysts also made a statement about the danger of a shortage of SSD drives, which gradually replaced hard drives in computers and other gadgets. Their report says that the accident threatens to increase the price of solid-state drives.

Experts calculated that 6.5 exabytes is 13% of the total amount of memory that companies planned to release in the first quarter of 2022, about 3% of the global volume.

According to TrendForce forecasts, already in the second quarter of 2022, that is, from March 1, buyers will expect both a shortage of SSDs and their price increase by 5-10%.

So far, these are preliminary forecasts. Analysts admit that problems with Western Digital and Kioxia can lead to much more damage to the storage market.

The statement indicated that the problem is related to the contamination of the reagents used in the manufacture of NAND memory, the basis of any modern SSD. The incident took place back in January 2022, and it is only now that companies have assessed the resulting damage.

Kioxia in the report avoids the wording "stop production", but indicates that it is counting on a "soon resumption of work." The Western Digital report only talks about the amount of wasted memory. Neither company indicated when the situation would return to normal.

Kioxia is one of the largest manufacturers of flash memory and solid state drives in the world and is a key supplier to Western Digital. In 2021, the companies contemplated a merger, but the deal did not materialize. Western Digital and Kioxia jointly rank second in terms of flash memory output, surpassed only by Samsung.

bbabo.Net