Macronix Winds Down Legacy ROM Production to Chase Data Center NOR Demand
Macronix will gradually phase out ROM (read-only memory, chips whose contents are fixed at manufacture) and shift its focus to NOR flash memory for data centers. The company disclosed the plan alongside its third-quarter 2026 results, as The Verge reported on November 4, 2026.
The segment numbers explain the direction. In Q3 2026, Macronix's ROM revenue fell 39 percent year over year. NOR revenue rose 158 percent over the same period, and NAND revenue surged 768 percent. The NAND swing is far larger than the NOR one, but the company's stated emphasis on NOR is specific: it is the product line tied to the data center push.
On the Q3 2026 earnings call, chairman and CEO Miin Wu said demand for NOR used in data centers is very robust. The phase-out is described as gradual, so the ROM line is not ending on a fixed date. The transition will presumably play out over several quarters of product and customer changes.
For readers who think of NOR mainly as a code-storage part in embedded and automotive designs, the data center angle is the less familiar piece. NOR's random-access reads and execute-in-place (XIP, meaning a processor can run code directly from the chip without first copying it to RAM) keep it relevant in boot and firmware roles. The company is now pointing that franchise at server and infrastructure platforms. Whether that demand comes from boot flash, management controllers, or something else is not specified in the reporting, and it would be speculation to assign it.
The ROM decision also lands in a different corner of the industry. The Verge paired the Macronix news with Nintendo's position on physical games. Nintendo has said it has no plans to ditch physical games, and it reported that physical titles accounted for 38.5 percent of its software sales. These are two separate threads: one concerns a memory supplier's product mix, the other a console maker's software sales structure.
Nintendo's hardware side has its own recent history. In March 2026, Bloomberg reported that Nintendo cut Switch 2 production output by more than 30 percent after holiday demand trailed the company's expectations. The Switch 2 is priced at $450.
In my view, the most useful number here is the 39 percent decline, because it measures how fast a legacy read-only product line can shrink relative to the rest of a supplier's portfolio. A company can keep a product alive through a gradual wind-down, but the quarterly revenue curve sets the planning horizon. Anyone building on ROM-based designs should watch the timing and last-time-buy terms rather than the headline.
The broader context here is a memory market where capacity and attention are moving toward data center demand. Macronix's quarter shows that shift in both directions: a legacy product declining sharply while a data center-linked product grows fast. What the company does with the freed capacity and engineering effort will determine whether the pivot delivers the growth the earnings call described. For the wider industry, designs that depend on ROM will need a supply plan, and NOR flash will have a larger share of the data center conversation than it did a year ago.
