The solid-state storage industry has been in decline for much of the past year, and it's obvious to all. As demand for storage products in the client and data center business has plummeted from highs, we have seen the three major memory manufacturers - SKhynix, Samsung and Micron - all significantly reduce NAND production. Now, the effects of this downturn are starting to spread to the SSD manufacturers themselves, with Solidigm confirming that they have laid off employees due to the industry downturn.
Solidigm is Intel's former solid-state drive business unit, now controlled by SKhynix. Solidigm confirmed it had recently made layoffs. The company said it was a "modest" layoff and said it "performed a modest layoff" on Wednesday, but declined to provide further details.
"Due to the prolonged downturn in the semiconductor industry and its impact on market conditions, Solidigm has implemented layoffs," Solidigm wrote in a statement. "The company will provide support and severance packages to our departing colleagues. We are deeply grateful to our team members who have made meaningful contributions during their time at Solidigm, and they will be greatly missed."
Solidigm did not disclose new headcount, but as of September 2022, the company had more than 2,000 employees in 20 regions around the world. Earlier this year, the company closed its branch in South Korea and hired an agency to handle sales there. Current announcements also appear to involve various business, management, marketing and sales positions.
Solidigm inherited personnel from Intel's NAND business unit, which the company agreed to sell to SKhynix in October 2020. At the end of 2021, Solidigm completed the first phase of the transaction and gained control of Intel's NAND and SSD business and the NAND memory factory in Dalian, China. Under the terms of the agreement with SKhynix, Intel will transfer some employees from its NAND division to Solidigm to operate as its SSD business.
Currently, Solidigm/SKhynix has not publicly announced layoffs, so the full impact of the layoffs on the business is unclear. SKhynix just released its third-quarter 2023 financial report, which showed that the company had a net loss of 2.185 trillion won (approximately US$1.6 billion), and will hold a quarterly conference call tonight (the morning of the 26th, Korean time), at which time we may learn more about the company’s plans for the troubled subsidiary. Previous reports have suggested that the company has made larger layoffs, but the word "moderate" still leaves some room for interpretation.
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