NAND memory shortage blamed on Apple

According to a report by DigiTimes, Apple is hogging the world's NAND flash memory. Taiwanese memory makers say that there is a serious shortage of NAND chips because Apple has priority on flash supplies.

Samsung has reportedly notified Taiwanese module manufacturers that it will halve its NAND supply to them this month -- and Micron has outright claimed to some of its customers that no chips are available. Toshiba and Hynix have also allotted priority to the iPod maker, and are offering a limited supply to the spot market. The drought may continue as Apple prepares to launch the iPhone in China during the fourth quarter of this year -- not to mention the recently launched 64GB iPod touch.

The average price of 16Gb MLC chips increased .85% to $5.17 on September 11, and 32Gb units were up .5% to $7.13, according to DRAMeXchange. Meanwhile, in the contract market, 16Gb chips rose 7.2% to $4.48 during the first half of this month, and 32Gb parts were up 4.3% to $6.80.