On the evening of September 16, Winbond Electronics announced the acquisition of 100% equity in Infineon's NOR Flash and F-RAM businesses in an all-cash deal. This transaction has pushed the two memory products, NOR Flash and F-RAM, back to the center of market attention. Driven by the AI boom and the automotive market, these two previously somewhat subdued memory products are expected to embark on a new growth cycle.
Winbond Electronics Acquires Infineon's Memory Business for USD 1.12 Billion
Winbond Electronics announced that it has signed a share purchase agreement with Infineon Technologies LLC, a subsidiary of Infineon, to acquire 100% equity in Infineon's NOR Flash and F-RAM businesses in an all-cash transaction, with a base transaction price of USD 1.12 billion. The transaction has been approved by the board of directors of Winbond Electronics and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2027, subject to necessary regulatory approvals.
It is reported that the business being sold primarily serves automotive, industrial, and infrastructure customers, with high requirements for memory reliability and long supply cycles, representing core application scenarios in the specialty memory market. The target company is headquartered in San Jose, California, USA, and has over 30 years of experience in memory solutions. Upon completion of the transaction, it will operate independently under the name "Spansion." Spansion was once a pioneer in the NOR Flash field and later came under Infineon through mergers and acquisitions. Winbond Electronics Chairman and CEO Youjun Jiao stated that Spansion was once a pioneer in the memory industry, creating multiple innovative achievements and technological breakthroughs. Winbond Electronics is honored to once again carry forward this mission under the name Spansion.
Winbond Electronics is one of the world's leading suppliers of niche memory solutions, adopting an IDM model with a layout covering the design, R&D, wafer manufacturing, and sales of memory chips. Its product line is centered on NOR Flash, while also covering niche DRAM, SLC NAND, secure flash memory, etc., and is widely used in scenarios such as automotive electronics, industrial IoT (Internet of Things), consumer electronics, and AI servers.
Industry analysts believe that there are three core considerations for Winbond Electronics in this acquisition:
First, Infineon's NOR Flash and F-RAM businesses have deep accumulations of automotive-grade certifications and long-cycle supply capabilities in high-barrier markets such as automotive and industrial sectors. The acquisition will directly provide access to the supply chains of top global customers;
Second, the business has a mature customer base and long-term stable customer relationships in the European and American markets, which can save the certification cycle required to re-explore overseas markets;
Third, the original Spansion business has accumulated over 30 years of technology, patents, and brand assets in the memory field. Retaining the original team and technology roadmap will help reduce integration costs and maintain the continuity of the product line.
NOR Flash: AI Servers Drive Demand, Prices Enter an Upward Channel
NOR Flash is a type of non-volatile flash memory, primarily used for code and firmware storage in embedded devices. Its core features include support for execute-in-place (XIP), meaning devices can directly read and run program code within the chip without transferring the code to memory; it also features extremely fast random read speeds and high reliability. Due to its relatively small capacity and higher unit cost, NOR Flash is mainly applied in scenarios with high requirements for boot speed and reliability, such as routers, automotive electronics, AI servers, edge AI devices, and low Earth orbit satellites.
While application scenarios continue to expand, the supply and demand relationship of NOR Flash is also changing. On the demand side, the NOR Flash usage per AI server is about 3 to 5 times that of traditional servers. Moreover, AI servers are equipped with a large number of Retimer chips, each requiring an independent NOR Flash to load microcode, directly driving up the demand for high-capacity and Octal SPI NOR. On the supply side, international giants such as Samsung and Micron are gradually exiting the general-purpose NOR market, shifting capacity towards high-margin HBM and DDR5, leading to a continuous contraction in general-purpose NOR capacity; the cycle for new capacity from process shrinkage, yield ramp-up to customer validation is relatively long, making it impossible to quickly fill the supply and demand gap in the short term.
The latest memory industry research by TrendForce points out that the NOR Flash market is undergoing the most important supply and demand structural shift in nearly a decade. With AI occupying most of the capacity, coupled with the upgrading of high-end application demand, the increase in suppliers' NOR Flash bit output is limited. It is estimated that supply and demand will remain unbalanced in the second half of 2026, with overall contract prices maintaining at high levels, and prices for high-capacity products may even double. [Related Reading]
TrendForce states that in the first half of 2026, the average cumulative increase in NOR Flash contract prices reached 100%—120%, and it is estimated that the price trends for products of different capacities will diverge in the second half of the year. High-capacity products of 256Mb and above have strong demand from AI servers and automotive applications, coupled with limited new bits from major supply manufacturers, the average price in the second half is estimated to still have a 90%—110% room for increase. In the medium and low-capacity market of 128Mb and below, as some suppliers gradually release capacity, the price increase for consumer products will slow down, and subsequently enter a high-level consolidation. The increase in the fourth quarter of 2026 is estimated to fall between 10% and 20%.
TrendForce further points out that even though relevant suppliers have all increased capital expenditures and expanded production, new capacity must go through process shrinkage, yield ramp-up, product validation, and incorporation into customer specifications and design-in. It cannot be immediately converted into market-available supply. Therefore, the gap in the medium and high-capacity market cannot be filled in the short term.
From the perspective of supply from major manufacturers, Winbond Electronics will have the largest bit growth in 2026, mainly coming from the full-scale volume production of 45nm process NOR products and the process shrinkage effect brought by the transition to 25nm/20nm; GigaDevice's product line covers the full capacity range from 512Kb to 2Gb, and it is actively upgrading the process for capacities above 32Mb in 2026. However, the transfer of some NOR foundry work to overseas wafer fabs and the run-in period will affect the effective output in the first half of the year; Macronix, due to prioritizing the allocation of its newly added 12-inch capacity in 2026 to the more scarce NAND and eMMC, has limited growth in NOR wafer starts.
F-RAM: A Niche Memory Solution with High-Speed Writing and High Durability
F-RAM (Ferroelectric RAM) is a type of non-volatile memory based on the ferroelectric effect of ferroelectric materials. It combines the advantages of non-volatile memory, where data is not lost after power-off, and volatile memory, which features high-speed writing and high rewrite durability. It stores data through changes in the atomic polarization state inside ferroelectric crystals.
The core advantages of F-RAM are reflected in four aspects. In terms of high-speed writing, the writing speed reaches the nanosecond level, eliminating the need for erase operations like traditional flash memory, and supporting direct overwrite writing, making it suitable for scenarios with high real-time requirements. In terms of high rewrite durability, the number of read and write cycles can reach the trillion level, far exceeding traditional EEPROM and Flash, making it suitable for applications requiring frequent writing. In terms of low power consumption, the read and write power consumption is extremely low, making it suitable for battery-powered portable devices. In terms of high reliability, it is non-volatile, radiation-resistant, and high-temperature resistant, with a long data retention time.
From the perspective of application prospects, F-RAM is irreplaceable in multiple segmented fields. Automotive electronics is the core growth pole. The battery management systems of NEVs (New Energy Vehicles) need to record battery data at high frequencies, and automotive event data recorders need to record collision data in an instant. The high-speed writing and high durability of F-RAM perfectly match these needs.
In the IoT (Internet of Things) and industrial automation fields, devices such as smart meters and industrial sensors need to record data at high frequencies and require low power consumption and long lifespan. The writing power consumption of F-RAM is only a fraction of that of EEPROM. In the medical equipment field, devices such as ventilators and implantable devices have strict requirements for data reliability and radiation resistance. The high reliability of F-RAM makes it an ideal choice.
In terms of technological evolution, F-RAM is breaking through towards higher capacity and smaller sizes. CEA-Leti demonstrated a 22nm node FeRAM using a 3D capacitor architecture at the VLSI symposium in 2026, solving the bottleneck problem that has long limited FeRAM density and opening up new space for applications in edge AI, high-performance computing, and aerospace. Given the continuous upgrading of downstream industries such as IoT (Internet of Things), automotive electronics, and industrial automation, the market application space for F-RAM is expected to be further broadened.
From the perspective of Winbond Electronics' current acquisition, what it obtains is not only NOR Flash capacity and customer resources, but also F-RAM, a memory technology with differentiated advantages in specific niche markets. Against the backdrop of NOR Flash prices entering an upward cycle and continuous breakthroughs in F-RAM technology, these two types of memory products are moving from "supporting roles" in the industry to more attention-grabbing positions.
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