Some reports have pegged Apple's products as the biggest consumer of modern flash memory production, leaving scant pickings for the competition.  Now, the supply could be even shorter thanks to a power-outage hitting six of Samsung's key NAND production lines, forcing them to shut down.  Samsung produce the memory chips used in both the iPhone and iPod lines.

Seemingly caused by a malfunctioning switchboard, the lines affected produce up to 91-percent of Samsung's NAND output and were worth $12.4bn in global sales for the company last year.  In response, Samsung's share price dropped 1.3-percent, while prices for 8GB chips rose to $19, an increase of 6-percent.

"This will lead to prices to increase even further and there will be a shortage of the chips.  The main beneficiaries are Toshiba and Hynix, while Samsung may not reach its shipment growth target for this quarter" Lee Min Hee, Analyst, Dongbu Securities Co.

Samsung currently leads the market in NAND supply, with a 45-percent share, while Toshiba and Hynix lag behind with 26 and 18-percent respectively. 

Any break in chip production, which is usually a 24-hour operation, leads to the machines involved needing recalibrating and fine-tuning taking place.  Samsung has so far declined to comment.