MemCon 2008-- The Issues: Continuing our top level discussion of the 2008 Denali MemCon event below, we will be discussing a few of the important issues that were surfaced during the three day event. This industry is not slowing down a bit, and just when one gets comfortable that they can see down the road for a while, something changes, some significant issues emerge, some expectation disappoints, some external force or constraint changes in an unforeseen way, that forces an industry-wide review and resetting of strategies, technical directions, business models…and today, survival strategies. Poor profits for more than a year now, amid increasing demand for new and innovative products (i.e., more R&D), and for facility expansions (the market is still VERY strong, in GB and Units), have pushed some companies to retreat, be spun out, and/or to seek partnerships that enable them to go forward.

Here are some highlights of important issues that were developed at this year’s MemCon:

The Issues: Spoken in many ways and from different perspectives, there was a broad consensus that (1) the movement to a NAND Flash centric and driven industry was Big News with Big Consequences, (2) The consumer end markets were vastly different from the historical Major Chip Industry Force of the PC-compute space, and (3) we are just at the beginning of these transitions. As grim as the P&L looks today for almost all memory makers, demand in terms of silicon and units of end systems, is robust, volatile and rapidly changing. Opportunities, challenges, and pitfalls are everywhere.

Defining the Needs: There are major “market and product characterization” uncertainties ahead, as was evident in the presentations and analysis of end markets. Applications requirements, in terms of endurance needed, read and write performance and use of MLC, SLC, x3 (or x4) are often still up in the air. For DRAMs the uncertainties are about the need and speed of using DDR3 DRAMs, to replace DDR2-667s which have been the PC mainstay for more than two full years. In the mobile space, how much “LP” is needed is not clear and IS variable from system to system. In the end markets, the precise definition and needs of the variety of low-end ‘computers’ on the system side is still fuzzy and very much a moving target.

Fate of NOR?, or Fate of NOR! Numonyx and Spansion are now free agents; Spansion for about 18 months and Numonyx only since it was spun out from Intel and ST and the end of 1Q08. Both have formidable technology portfolios, both are racing against a NOR flash market which faces both slow growth and often a full court press from NAND, both are trying to find new applications and products while cost reducing aggressively and holding off competition in the biggest NOR market: cell phones. This they are doing all at once, plus competing with each other for market presence and design wins in the next and next-next cell phones.

In seeking new and different places to apply their technology, Spansion’s recent EcoRAM announcement seeks to displace DRAMs based on the EcoRAM’s lower power Data Servers, was joined in this meeting with a new-Numonyx likewise “new NOR Direction” market development. Numonyx announced in a press release at MemCon their “Velocity LP DDR NV RAM” product offering. Never very specific about what exactly it was, we presume it is a multi-chip-in-single-package device with NOR flash and LP DDR DRAM, in a tuned and optimized code-executable front end for the larger cell phone memory stack, backed up with lower-cost NAND flash.

Fear and Loathing at the Low end…no, “of” the low end: It is not just at MemCon that the concern and interest over how the ultra-low end of the PC market will develop is palpable. Expected to ship perhaps 10M units in 2008, depending on what definition is used, the Ultra Low Cost (ULCPC), Ultra Mobile (UMPC), MID (Mobile Internet Devices), Net Computers, or the “Pocket PC”, this class of machines is, at once, beholden to little in the establishment architectures and methods of implementation: Windows and Vista? Well, maybe Linux? HDD? No, SSDs seem quite enough. AMD or Intel MPU? Well, maybe, or maybe Via or maybe ARM.

Unhooking from the ‘tradition' means freedom of architecture and implementation, as well, of course, freedom from having to pay for those high gross margins of the established suppliers. RAM amounts and screen size are reduced; power is down sharply (paying homage to the spiraling out of sight power bills), and battery life extended. The driving force is small form-factor and even smaller cost and price; where one’s laptop (notebook) might formerly have been used in the field and then ported and synched up to one’s desktop in the office three to five years ago, the industry is moving one rung down the ladder: desktops are now become laptops (portables), and the ULPC (or PDA, SuperPhone) is taken on the road and synched up when in the office. The industry consequences of this movement could be grand or devastating, depending on whether one is “Wintel-Dell-HP”-aligned and will suffer loss or cannibalization of their larger system and higher margin business, or one of the Asian PC minions eating the bottom of the market like piranhas. (Not too different from the US carmakers’ “SUV profit” threat felt from hybrids’ small form factor, high gas mileage “Mini Coopers”, and smaller profit potential.)

While there were NO dedicated presentations aimed at this particular major system trend, it rippled through many conversations and presentations.

Focus on Memory in Phones: The cell phone memory stack is a major locus of churn, diversity, uncertainty and change. Many of the speakers crossed this issue in their presentations. Standards are only loosely present, the 1.2B annual shipments of phones not only span ‘NOR+PSRAM Ultimate Simplicity’, to the high end that is truly a small ‘Mobile Electronic Office’, with Internet, near-TV, calendaring and messaging, complete A-V capability… as well as a full keyboard. Across the spectrum, NOR and NAND, PSRAM and LP DRAM, are mixed and matched to the application…and are showing little interest in becoming less diverse or consolidating into a few broad classes. Constant pressure to increase phone features within a limited power envelope and simultaneously reduce chip-count are always frustrated by technical trends to more MB/system and higher performance and a BOM cap. Most phones still have Flash + (PSRAM or DRAM) on the inside, and increasingly support an external NAND Flash insertion slot on the outside.

Denali Keynote: In the clearest statement to date about Denali’s focus and corporate contribution to the industry, Denali’s co-founder and CTO, Mark Gogolewski discussed the broad subject of product enablement, and the art, and science (and discipline and the industry’s compelling needs) of getting new silicon capabilities launched into the market. As the world shifts from a more predictable PC and PC- DRAM centric growth trajectory to one dominated by rapid product turnover, an increased willingness to pioneer new systems and technologies and ‘make markets’ in the consumer space, the need for a powerful and capable group of infrastructure enablers is increasingly necessary to pave the way, remove barriers and obstacles to rapid execution and implementation. Denali’s business is largely been built around such enablement, with critical IP and expertise, memory market and technology domain knowledge, significant ASIC and SoC verification capabilities, and system interface optimization tools, making themselves an essential partner to system houses and SOC designers to insert those custom chips and systems into the marketplace.

See the Denali MemCon website at for the complete proceedings, available on line in just a few days.