Rumors suggest that Apple is placing huge orders of NAND chips. With this, threatening the supply in demand by other tier-one vendors.

Sources suggest that "as Toshiba, Hynix Semiconductor, Intel and Micron Technology have allocated less chip supplies to the Asia market since early April, downstream memory suppliers are striving to grab more NAND flash chips to meet substantial volumes of short lead-time orders from device makers, the sources indicated." Supply is expected to remain tight until at least the end of May, the sources said. "Spot prices for mainstream MLC NAND flash trended upward during the week of March 27-April 2, as a result of tightening supplies, data gathered by inSpectrum show."

According to DRAMeXchange, contract prices for MLC NAND flash chips have increased by up to 16% for the first half of April, as a result of shipment adjustments by chip suppliers. Major NAND flash chipmakers tend to allocate more shipments to device makers, and do not plan to increase their production for the second quarter in order to maintain price stability. The chips are then recombined during manufacturing into the larger 16GB, 32GB, and so on capacities found in handheld consumer electronics.

[via EngadgetMobile]