Are Samsung TCCD IC's Dead?

Post by **Apoptosis** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 4:46 pm

In this article over at The Inq they state that TCCD IC's are dead and that a enthusiasts sanity is in question...

Day of memory frenzy threatens overclockers' sanity

GET ONTO the main floor and listen up, people. It's nine in the morning, and we have a new threat to the security of the world overclocking economy. Samsung is discontinuing its TCCD memory chips, we learned exclusively just hours ago.

Our sources tell us a different story and none of them have shown concern today saying their Samsung TCCD Stock is alive and well with more on the way!

From what we found out today from Corsair, Kingston, and Mushkin is that the memory industry is not worried about the recent concerns dealing with Samsung ending production on the TCCD IC's. To be honest not once were the words discontinued or EOL (End of Life) used in our conversations. If you were one of the people this morning running around telling all your friends to buy TCCD based memory today you now know that is not the case.

Our article is posted HERE for your enjoyment

Post by **Illuminati** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 5:59 pm

I'm curious as to who TheInq got their 'exclusive' from. Seems to me that by what Nate found out, TheInq's article is not accurate... Not that this should surprise us to begin with though...

Sounds like we can all relate this to the original radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds (which will soon be a movie!!).

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 6:07 pm

well i hope your right nate because i want some tccd when i upgrade to a64 (still hoping its going to be late march)

Post by **Apoptosis** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 6:27 pm

I wouldn't worry too much... Samsung TCCD's are going to be here for at 6+ months at least. With winbond kicking off their CH-5's and doing small runs of the BH-5's you really don't have to worry at all.

It just looks like the memory companies are getting tired of mass production of DDR1 and DDR2 parts... Can you blame them though? When DDR came out it was a clear winner over SDRAM, but all that has changed this technology change. If they can force everyone over to DDR2 then they would lower costs... kinda reminds me of the whole Rambus versus DDR situation.

miguelnunes · Post by **miguelnunes** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 4:13 am

Hi

This is my first post in here, but I think I can help a bit in this history.

I have info that may help a bit in this, as I work in a large distribution company as product manager. It is true that Samsung TCCD delivery has been very tight in the last months (after December), but this may be because of high demande on Xmas sales. Anyway, I know because I have standing orders for high speed mem, that in January availabiltiy has been reduced to almost nothing. I cannot confirm this story until monday because of Chinese New Year, but I hope I can give some insight to you guys asap.

Anyway it is also true that Winbond and ProMOS are in the way to build factories in Taiwan (according to Digitimes) so we might have some new products in the future.

It is also known that Samsung want's to produce only DDR2 and XDR3, but until AMD gets a DDR2 cpu, DDR will be around. Anyway, do not forget that a small company called Kingmax reported that 25% of theyr sales in 2004 were SDR, so to tell that what can happen is that, while SEC may want to push DDR2 for new products, DDR will still be a big part of the sales (my company still buys 20K per week of DDR and 500 of DDR2).

Anyway, I don't think that if Samsung TCCD is over it will take more than 2 months, because in nowadays people searching for them are a lot more than before.

Hope this post helps a bit.

Spec3 · Post by **Spec3** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 7:47 am

I guess you guys missed the invite, but Winbond has been going strong under micron basically since they "shut down". CH-5 was never discontinued as the Micron C-die IC's used the same die

Post by **Apoptosis** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 10:02 am

Welcome to the forums miguelnunes and thanks for the info. Everything you stated pretty much makes sense and I agree with the whole high demand and change over to DDR2 comments.

Winbond and ProMOS pursue capacity expansion amid industry downturn. Despite most observers forecasting an industry downturn in 2005, both Winbond Electronics and ProMOS Technologies recently secured bank loans for funding construction of their respective 12-inch fabs, and both companies reaffirmed confidence in their capacity expansion plans.

Industry players estimate that there will be a 30-40% decline in the average selling price (ASP) of memory chips this year, although the decline in price should be eased by the makers’ maturing process capabilities. Players explained that the migration to more advanced nodes will stabilize this year and help suppress costs. However, total output of 512Mbit DDR chips or DDR2 will still be constrained by technology barriers, and this should keep output at a reasonable level and help prevent any serious oversupply.

Here is aLINKto the Winbond/ProMOS article for all those that want to read it.

I also like to note that The Inq has posted a response to our article after it was posted...

"First off, an article over at Legit Reviews claims to be the be all and end all of this matter. The Legit guys talked to a bunch of companies and got official comments from them all, and claim these comments prove the INQ wrong. They don't. The comments are merely the public faces of a bunch of RAM companies who are suddenly facing big changes in their stock. At least two of the companies that 'Legit' interviewed that told them that there was no problem, told the INQ a completely different story, off the record and on the phone. Moral of the story? As Jeremy Paxman once said, when talking to people on the record, always think: "Why are these lying bastards lying to me?"

I find it funny that we talked to all these companies on the phone also and off the record and yes we were told more things. None of which said there was a supply isssue for months to come.

It isn't that were are proving the INQ wrong it's that we are stating that the current supply and production levels will last months.

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 10:50 am

INQ staff paid by Samsung to drive up prices?? or by al-Qaida?

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 11:09 am

The INQ spends alot of time defending their stories. Like the other Pub by that name, pick and choose what to believe. I guess their motto is "throw enough crap out there and some of it is bound to be true"

drexor69 · Post by **drexor69** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 12:00 pm

Spec3 wrote:I guess you guys missed the invite, but Winbond has been going strong under micron basically since they "shut down". CH-5 was never discontinued as the Micron C-die IC's used the same die

That's simply wrong.

Winbond has been a contract mfg for Infineon lo these many months, not Micron. The "B" die rev to be specific and on the .11 shrink.

Post by **Apoptosis** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 3:10 pm

For those of you who doubt where our information comes from let me show you a photo from today (2-11-2005) that shows the source of our information.

The above photo shows Corsair President & CEO Andy Paul with Samsung Senior Vice President/General Manager of Memory Sales & Marketing, Nam Yong (N.Y.) Cho, on his visit from Samsung Electronics' Korean HQ on the afternoon of 2-11-2005.

This image shows Andy Paul, Nam Yong, a Corsair buyer, a Samsung Electronics America salesman, Corsair Engineering VP John Beekley, Corsair Engineering Director Martin Mueller, and Samsung employee that was at Corsair for the meetings this afternoon.

As you can tell our sources of information from all memory companies is right on the money. We specialize in memory and we strive to bring you the most up to date and realistic memory articles on the net!

miguelnunes · Post by **miguelnunes** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 2:44 am

I'm trying to get the story from the PM's of A-DATA in Taiwan. They use TCCD in the Vitesta line (566 and 600).

Post by **Apoptosis** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 9:48 am

hum... who snagged this pic from us, cropped our logo out, and posted it on The Inq...

http://www.theinq.com/?article=21264

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:09 am

well its time to put a very big LR logo in every picture, and make it very faint so people can still see the image.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:46 pm

I don't even know what to say. I just lost any respect I did actually have for the Inquirer

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 1:42 pm

capper5016 wrote:I don't even know what to say. I just lost any respect I did actually have for the Inquirer

Wow, yeah, I agree. I just joined these forums but I like the way everyone sticks to the facts (hence the name "LEGIT Reviews/Forums").

I have alwyas taken whatever the Inquirer says with a grain of salt, but that was just lame.

When Winbond shut down production of BH-5, what was the atmosphere like? Similar to this with TCCD? Or was it a lot easier to get a hold of actual real factual information?

Post by **Apoptosis** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 1:49 pm

It was the same as this is... It took over 6 months for them to "dry up", but "bad" overclocking date codes were on the spot markets for months after that. I find it funny that BH-5's are back in production and no one seems to care. Just goes to show you how TCCD's took over and replaced BH-5's.

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:08 pm

Apoptosis wrote:I find it funny that BH-5's are back in production and no one seems to care. Just goes to show you how TCCD's took over and replaced BH-5's.

REALLY?! Wow, I really didn't know they brought back BH-5

Is there any quality RAM that is using it right now?

Post by **Apoptosis** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:16 pm

Winbond is currently running off about 100,000 BH-5 IC's a week... If you do the math on them it thats not many IC's at all. A single 512mb PC-3200 module uses 16 IC's. Since most motherboards are sold in kits that means it takes 32 IC's for one matched memory kit. So thats 3,125 kits that can be made from 100,000 IC's. Add in defects, fallout, production errors, and failed testing that number drops.

Companies like Kingston and Corsair do more than a half million IC's a month in volume on some of their IC's and aren't going to waste time building a "special edition" memory series. Companies like OCZ and Mushkin might be able to pick up some of these IC's and use them though as they work with smaller amounts and often buy off the spot market. All I know is that someone is buying them otherwise they wouldn't be making them. Time will tell if anyone uses them as performance memory.

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 6:14 pm

Hmmmmm, very interesting...
Thanks Apoptosis!