Nintendo's biggest ROM chip supplier is bowing out of the business
摘要
芯片制造商旺宏在第三季度财报中宣布，其ROM芯片生产“已走到尽头”，并将开始“逐步退出游戏行业”。分析师指出，旺宏是任天堂实体游戏卡带的主要存储芯片供应商，这一变动可能对任天堂产生影响。过去一年该业务萎缩39%，目前仅占旺宏业务的5%，产能正被利润更高的NOR、NAND存储及eMMC芯片挤占。旺宏月产能为2.5万片12英寸晶圆，新建产能需一年以上才能投产，低
For years, the AI industry's insatiable demand for memory and storage has had plenty of knock-on effects on the price and availability of PC components like RAM, SSDs, and GPUs. Now those shortages are also squeezing the supply of ROM chips that power physical Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 game cartridges.
Chip manufacturer Macronix announced in its third-quarter earnings report that the company's production of ROM chips "has reached its end" and that it will begin "gradually decoupling from the game industry," as reported by Taiwanese news site BigGo Finance. That could be an issue for Nintendo, which analyst David Gibson notes uses Macronix as its "main memory chip maker" for physical game cartridges.
That ROM production—which has shrunk 39 percent in the last year and now represents just 5 percent of Macronix's business—is being crowded out by production of more lucrative, in-demand chips like NOR- and NAND-based memory and eMMCs, the company said. With Macronix's production capacity stuck at 25,000 12-inch wafers a month—and $1.2 billion in planned new capacity taking a year or more to spin up—less profitable ROM chips are taking up wafer space that can earn more through other types of chips.
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