Quote from Engadget.com:
"C'mon, don't act so shocked -- you had to realize that these record sales of NAND-based iPhones and iPods were using up some serious flash memory, right?"

Flash memory prices for everyone in China have been climbing like crazy these last two weeks.

Chinese factories are being told by their flash suppliers that it's due to a huge shortfall of production caused by "a fire in a Samsung factory". Samsung, the worldwide leader in flash memory production, has been forced to shut down six of its chip production lines after a power outage occurred at a plant near Seoul. Samsung originally said the plant would be down for two days, but reported it was up by mid-day on Saturday August 4th. Now, 10 days after this accident the prices for flash are even climbing higher.

Another rumour surfacing among Chinese electronics insiders is that the enormous - and perhaps unpredicted - success of the newly released Apple iPhone can be blamed.
Source Here
I said just wait and see - richboyz!

i sense some business politics.... anyone?

Haha... Maybe is their tactic to increase the price... But eventhough increase wont be much ithink...

Agree, samsung always use dirty tactic..like what samsung did on their LCD monitor

heck, i nit a new thumbdrive after my 512MB went dead on me recently, any idea when will the price drop again? i was waiting for 4GB before the price hike, but now i have to be satisfied with 2GB edy

last i check, kingston DTII 8GB sells at abt RM299

August 3, 2007
Power Loss At Samsung Plant Halts Production
By Andy Patrizio


A power outage at Samsung Electronics's manufacturing plant near Seoul forced a shutdown of several production lines, which may result in a short-term squeeze in the supply of memory.

Initial rumors said there was a fire at the plant, which would have been far more severe. The company later said its Kiheung complex lost power after a malfunction at a transformer substation.

Samsung is the world's largest maker of memory chips, with 44 percent of the market, according to market researcher iSuppli. Samsung's loss was its competitors' gain, with Hynix and Toshiba gaining in the Asian market and Sandisk and Micron gaining in the American stock market on what was otherwise a horrible day for investors.

The plant makes DRAM (define) and NAND (define) flash chips, which are widely used in many portable devices. A Samsung spokesperson told the Associated Press that six of 11 lines were shut down, including one that made advanced NAND flash, and that some of those lines were halted.

Samsung said it would take about two days to get its factory back up to production, but declined to discuss the impact of the lost production. Dean McCarron, president of semiconductor analysis firm Mercury Research, said the complexity of chip manufacturing is a factor.

"A lot of people don't realize there's hundreds or even thousands of steps to manufacture a chip," he told internetnews.com. "Every layer is a step and there's hundreds of layers in a chip."

Also, the manufacturing process for memory is an all-or-nothing affair. If there is substantial power disruption during production, you lose any work in process. So anything in the process of being manufactured by Samsung is going to be scrap, he said. Samsung is putting its estimated loss at 15 percent for the third quarter.

Given its market position, McCarron figures that could mean an eight to 10 percent shortfall in memory for the overall market, which could trigger some price increases. "It would make things a little tight. It wouldn't be a total market crisis but it would be enough to have its impact felt market-wide," he said.

Analyst Jim McGregor of In-Stat was even less concerned. "It won't be that bad," he said. "If it was a major natural disaster then I would be worried. With memory prices in the tank anyway, if anything else it may stabilize things. It'll put a crimp on them this quarter, but it's a short-term thing."