Mobile Phone Embedded Memory Industry Report, 2007

• Publication date: June 2007
• Report size: 115 pages

The mobile phone can be divided into four categories, low-end mobile phone, featured phone, smart phone and high-end mobile phone. The low-end mobile phone uses one two-chip MCP memory, which is generally 32 or 64 NOR, 16 or 8M RAM, but not NAND. Presently, featured phone has two kinds of memory configuration methods, one is a three-chip MCP memory, which is usually from Toshiba, 256M NOR, 128M RAM, 512 or 1204M NAND. It is a popular way for Chin...

The mobile phone can be divided into four categories, low-end mobile phone, featured phone, smart phone and high-end mobile phone. The low-end mobile phone uses one two-chip MCP memory, which is generally 32 or 64 NOR, 16 or 8M RAM, but not NAND. Presently, featured phone has two kinds of memory configuration methods, one is a three-chip MCP memory, which is usually from Toshiba, 256M NOR, 128M RAM, 512 or 1204M NAND. It is a popular way for Chinese mobile phone manufacturers to adopt, as these manufacturers do not have their own design platforms. While, the leading manufacturers, such as Nokia, Motorola, have had rich experiences in platform design, and these platforms have not considered to correspond the three-chip MCP memory, (Toshiba started to popularize the earliest three-chip MCP memory in the industry at the beginning of 2005), therefore, the design should be separated. Generally, it has two pieces of memory, one is the common memory including NOR and RAM, and the other is the single NAND or NAND including RAM.

Smart phone has two kinds of memory configuration methods, one is DISK-ON-CHIP technology developed by M-SYSTEM and acquired by SANDISK, which can transfer some NAND to NOR, and Motorola is of such case. Usually, 1024 NAND can transfer to 256M NOR, as well as can save about 640M NAND. However, as far as the pace concerned, the manufacturers need to add one traditional two-chip MCP to correspond the fundamental frequency communication system, in addition, DISK-ON-CHIP is the XSCALE processor mainly for the smart phone. The price of NAND decreased a lot, while the gross profit of brand memory of SANDISK is a bit higher, but the gross profit of OEM NAND is too much low. The supply amount of DISK-ON-CHIP in the future will decrease, so it is definitely that the small-size manufacturers cannot obtain it. Generally, the manufacturers adopt one NAND and DDR SDRAM or Mobile RAM memory to boost up the calculation capability.

Generally, the high-end mobile phone has the powerful video function, especially the multi-media application or TV mobile phone. This kind of mobile phone not only requires application processor, but also MPEG-2 decode or 3D picture acceleration. Therefore, it usually has three pieces of memories. Such as N73, one Samsung two-chip memory K5G2829ATC-DF75 is responsible for fundamental frequency NOR and RAM requirement, meanwhile, NOR memory capacity is 128M, and RAM is 128M DDR SDRAM. In addition, one Samsung two-chip memory K5E1G12ACM-S075 meets the demand of application processor OMAP 2410, and the RAM memory capacity is 512M DDR SDRAM, NAND memory capacity is 1024M. Moreover, the STMicroelectronics MT48H4M16LFB3 that can match picture acceleration DM290 and, its capacity is 64M SDRAM.

Viewed from the future development trend, as the transfer of the featured phone design platform, one three-chip MCP memory will be the absolute mainstream. However, Samsung three-chip MCP memory and four-chip MCP memory generally supply Samsung itself, so Toshiba may obtain much market. The DISK-ON-CHIP amount used by smart phone drops, so the second configuration method is required to adopt, while it will not change in a short period. As the increasing maturation of the latest concentration and powerful multi-media function fundamental frequency development platform, the memory of high-end mobile phone will reduce to two chips, however, the capacity will not decrease, but much higher, especially RAM, 1024 RAM will appear.

The key suppliers in China mobile phone memory market are Spansion, Samsung and Toshiba. Spansion is the leading supplier, and nearly monopolizes the low-end mobile phone field. However, Samsung grew up in the second half of 2006, the serious lack of SPANSION 128+32 and 64+16/64+31NOR+SRAM MCP provided a favorable chance for Samsung, and then Samsung entered the mobile phone MCP field gradually in August, and the 128+32MCP chip it launched can replace SPANSION 129 series of products with pin to pin as long as the simple adjustment in the software, moreover, the price is USD 0.5 lower than the same product of SPANSION 128+32, so which made the B-class mobile phone manufacturing base design companies and manufacturers in mainland China came to Samsung MCP. In the beginning of 2007, Samsung launched its latest 128+32 products, K5L2931 and K5L2731, which attacked the large market shares of SPANSION. If SPANSION does not take corresponding measures, and its market shares will drop dramatically then.

Meanwhile, Toshiba monopolizes the three-chip MCP market in China. Due to the high price, the application scope of Toshiba is relatively small. However, Toshiba has many large clients, so the shipment is much higher. Samsung is weak even if it is taking the three-chip memory into account actively as well, as its popularization platform belongs to Spreadtrum, while the platform of Toshiba belongs to MTK, so its effect is much better.

Telephony Industry in China

1 Mobile Phone Memory
1.1 Mobile Phone Embedded Memory
1.2 Three Classifications of PSRAM
1.3 Cellular RAM
1.4 COSMORAM
1.5 UtRAM
1.6 Mobile SDRAM
1.7 Competition between NOR and NAND
1.8 PRAM
1.9 MRAM

2 Mobile Phone Memory Market and Industry Situation
2.1 Mobile Phone Memory Market
2.2 NOR Memory Market
2.3 NAND Market
2.4 Mobile DRAM
2.5 Mobile Phone Memory Industry

3 Memory Usage of Mobile Phone Manufacturers
3.1 Status Quo of Mobile Phone Memory Configuration and Future Development Trend
3.2 China Mobile Phone Memory Market Competition
3.3 China Mobile Phone Market
3.4 Nokia
3.5 Motorola
3.6 Samsung
3.7 LG
3.8 Sony Ericcson
3.9 Bird
3.10 Lenovo
3.11 Amoi
3.12 Memory Usage of Second-line Mobile Phone Manufacturers
3.12.1 Grey Market Mobile Phone
3.12.2 Second-line Mobile Phone

4 Mobile Phone Memory Manufacturers
4.1 Spansion
4.2 Samsung
4.3 Toshiba
4.4 STMicroelectronics Intel
4.5 Elpida
4.6 Windbond
4.7 Sharp
4.8 Etron
4.9 ESMT
4.10 Qimonda
4.11 MICRON
4.12 MXIC
4.13 SST