Taiwan-based memory IC maker Winbond Electronics suffered net losses of NT$1.189 billion (US$39.3 million) and a net loss per share of NT$0.32 for the fourth quarter of 2011 mainly because of decreased orders from hard disk drive (HDD) vendors arising from the impact of flooding in Thailand, weak global demand for PCs, LCD TVs and feature phones, as well as large drops in memory IC prices, according to company president Chan Tung-yi at a February 8 investors conference.
Of Winbond's fourth-quarter of 2011 revenues of NT$5.717 billion, 47% came from specialty DRAM, 37% from NOR flash, 14% from mobile RAM and 2% from GDDR. Of memory ICs shipped in the fourth quarter, 53% were based on 65nm process, 46% on 90nm and 1% on 110nm.
Winbond has set aside a 2012 capex budget of NT$3.3 billion mainly for expanding monthly flash product 58nm-based production capacity to 6,000 wafers, and monthly 46nm-based capacity of specialty DRAM to 9,000 wafers.
Winbond has extended its flash production from series NOR flash to parallel NOR flash and expects the proportion of total revenues for NOR flash to rise to 40% in 2012. In addition, Winbond will start production of 46nm-based SLC (single-level cell) NAND flash for low- to mid-range applications in the fourth quarter of 2012 or the first quarter of 2013.