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Toshiba smacks down down 'ransomware killed flash factory' report

DRAM analyst also says the supply chain is just fine, thank you very much

Toshiba has denied a report alleging its NAND flash factories were felled by ransomware.

Taiwan's Digitimes, which often finds news from deep in the supply chain, on Monday reported that Toshiba halted production for three to six weeks while it sorted out a ransomware mess. Doing so, the report suggested, saw production of 100,000 wafers deferred.

The outlet pondered that the supposed shutdown may be helping contribute to ongoing high memory prices.

Analyst firm DRAMeXchange, which specialises in solid-state memory, reached in to the supply chain and found no evidence of missing shipments. The firm's senior research manager Alan Chen said “there is no module supplier suspending quotes or shipments after knowing this information.”

Chen didn't rule out a disruption of some sort, saying “This incident is expected to be resolved immediately with Toshiba quickly ramping up production to lower or fully compensate for the wafer deficit.”

But Toshiba did smack it down: the company's media relations team told The Register “There is no such a fact that Toshiba Memory's Yokkaichi Operation is suspending its production line as reported in DigiTimes.”

Which will come as a relief to us all, as vendors of servers, PCs, smartphones and myriad other devices have spent 2017 complaining about the extra costs they're currently carrying. Those costs will have hit Reg readers in the pocket one way or another: either you've bought kit at inflated prices, or copped the effects of profits lowered by high component prices. ®

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