Western Digital Corporation (WDC)

[MorningLightMountain]

Western Digital May Topple Samsung in 3-D NAND, Says Susquehanna

July 26, 2016, 1:04 P.M. ET

By Tiernan Ray

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2016/07/26/western-digital-may-topple-samsung-in-3-d-nand-says-susquehanna/?mod=yahoobarrons&ru=yahoo&yptr=yahoo

Susquehanna Financial’s Mehdi Hosseini today reiterates a “Positive” rating on shares of Western Digital (WDC), writing that it has become the new “first mover” in NAND flash memory storage chips, perhaps closing the gap with Samsung Electronics (005930KS), the NAND giant.

Western this year closed its purchase of SanDisk, bringing vast NAND production assets to its traditional hard disk drive business.

The spur to Hosseini’s note today is the announcement this morning by Western, along with partner Toshiba (6502JP), that it has opened a new production facility in Japan’s Mie Prefecture for the conversion of existing “2-D” NAND to the newer “3-D” variant.

This is significant, he thinks, and Western and Toshiba may even surpass Samsung in production of the latest 3-D chips:

WDC’s announcement this morning of the commencement of pilot production of its 64-Layer TLC 3D NAND at the Yokkaichi plan is consistent with our long-held view that WDC/Toshiba is set to significantly close the 3D NAND technology gap with Samsung in 2017 (LINK). In fact, we would go so far as to say WDC/Toshiba may even MOVE PAST Samsung in 1H17 as WDC’s 64-Layer product begins OEM sampling in the current 3QCY16, volume shipment for Retail begins in 4QCY16, and meaningful volume shipments in 1H17. We believe Samsung’s 64-Layer roadmap may be a full two quarters behind that of WDC while Samsung may need a few more quarters to qualify at customers. From a broader 3D NAND industry perspective, we now view WDC and Samsung to be the leaders in 3D NAND, followed by MU/Intel (beginning meaningful volume shipments of 48-Layer 3D NAND in 1H17), and lastly Hynix, which remains well behind the pack in 3D NAND (meaningful volume ships of 48-Layer commencing in 2H17). In Figure 1, we illustrate the 3D NAND timelines for each player (Samsung, WDC/Toshiba, MU/Intel, and SK Hynix).

Western stock today is up $1.47, or 2.8%, at $53.54.