NOR flash supply is currently short of demand by around 20%, according to Tung-Yi Chan, president of Taiwan-based Winbond Electronics. Prices for the memory chip will continue going up in the third quarter of 2010, said Chan, adding that he is fairly optimistic about the market through the fourth quarter.

Winbond is sticking to its plans to scale up monthly capacity for NOR flash memory from the current 7,000 wafer starts to 10,000 by the end of 2010, Chan indicated. However, such production levels may still be unable to satisfy all its customers, Chan said.

In addition, Chan revealed prices for Winbond's specialty DRAM (SDRAM) memory will rise to 'more reasonable' levels in the third quarter. He did not elaborate on the scale of price increases.

Chan noted fluctuations in the global economy now have little impact on Winbond's business, as the company's strategy is designed to mainly serve first-tier customers for each product line.

Chan revealed Winbond's top-15 clients contribute 70% to the company's total revenues at present.

Winbond's TV-use NOR flash orders are concentrated among Japan- and Korea-based vendors, according to company sources. As for pseudo SRAM (PSRAM), the world's three leading suppliers of handset multi-chip packages (MCPs) are among Winbond's major customers.

Sales of Winbond's commodity DRAM accounted for 10% of the company's total revenues in the first quarter of 2010. The proportion will be lowered to almost zero, as Winbond aims to transform itself to a niche DRAM and NOR flash memory maker.