Memory manufacturers are at panic stations after news has been building of a NAND Flash memory shortage.

Digitimes reports that memory module houses are moving to diversify their NAND flash suppliers to minimise procurement risk. The shortage has been caused by major chip producers Samsung, Toshiba, Micron and Hynix allocating huge amounts of NAND flash for lucrative Apple devices.

Taiwan's module makers have relied heavily on Samsung for NAND flash supply, but they are likely to increase their orders to IM Flash now. Yesterday Samsung decided to launch of own-brand memory cards which implies that that NAND flash supply from the Korea-based vendor will be limited.

Many believe that local card makers may continue to see chip supply falling short of demand through the latter half of November. NAND flash across all applications, especially smartphones is expected to grow with a better economy in 2010.