One driver for Seagate in the transaction is its move into NAND-Flash based products: the company is nearing the launch of a second-generation enterprise solid-state drive offering, and Luczo says a third-generation product under development jointly with Samsung should arrive in 2012.
FORBES: Update: Seagate Falls After Deal; June Qtr Guidance Disappoints
To the public, NAND-type flash memory is most familiar in the form of memory cards or sticks used in digital cameras or portable music players.
Shares of SanDisk have been ablaze in the past year, gaining 125% in value as the maker of NAND-based flash memory chips basks in the sweet spot of semiconductors for mobile electronics.
FORBES: SanDisk Drives Higher As Mehrotra Prepares To Take Charge
Grandis makes a non-NAND flash solid state storage technology called spin-transfer torque RAM (STT-RAM) that stores information via the direction of magnetization in a spin-polarized electron current.
FORBES: The Enormous Flash: New Opportunities and Announcements for Solid State Storage
The new 32GB memory card incorporates 32Gb 3-bit NAND flash memory chips and a proprietary 3-bit NAND controller to deliver the high performance.
ENGADGET: Samsung announces 32GB microSD card capable of 12MBps write speeds
Texas Memory (a private company) has provided high end Tier 0 DRAM and more recently Tier 0 and Tier 1 NAND flash-based storage systems since 1978.
FORBES: Flash and Fire -- Flash Memory Announcements Before FMS 2012
Samsung started production of 10nm-class 64Gb MLC NAND flash memory in November last year, and in less than five months, has added the new 128Gb NAND flash to its wide range of high-density memory storage offerings.
Yet prices for the so-called NAND flash memory used in these gizmos dropped more than 50% between December and February of this year.
Prices of the widely used 32-gigabit NAND flash chip, typically used in smartphones and tablets to store data, jumped as much as 17.7% in late Asia trade Monday, according to DRAMeXchange, Asia's biggest spot market for chips.
In a recent report by research firm IHS iSuppli, the sale of solid-state NAND flash drives are projected to increase by 400% in 2011 driven by increasing adoption of tablets which primarily use flash memory for data storage.
In addition, the mutual supply agreements enable Seagate to secure an important source of leading-edge NAND flash supply as the company expands its SSD and solid state hybrid product offerings, and position Seagate to be a more significant supplier of disk drives to Samsung.
FORBES: Seagate To Buy Samsung's Hard Drive Business In $1.375B Deal
"The solutions developed by Supermicro and Fusion-io bring both performance and reliability to NAND Flash, giving Supermicro customers a mission-critical advantage over their competitors, " said Jim Dawson, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales for Fusion-io.
ENGADGET: Supermicro and Fusion-io team up to deliver new SuperServers
Demand for high-performance 3-bit MLC NAND flash and 128Gb high storage capacities has been rapidly increasing, driving the adoption of SSDs with more than 250GB data storage, led by the Samsung SSD 840 Series.
The Semiconductor Business sustained profitability in the quarter, amid weak market demand, thanks to a mix of high-margin products such as servers and Solid State Drives (SSDs) coupled with differentiated 20-nanometer class NAND flash chips.
ENGADGET: Samsung reports $8.27 billion in profits for Q4 2012 HD
Despite generating just a fraction of Intel's sales, Intel's NAND flash memory business--a joint venture with Micron--will weigh on Intel's first-quarter profits, thanks to a worldwide glut of NAND memory (see "Memory Problems For Intel").
The second method is far more destructive, and deletes the data by applying an over-current to the NAND flash memory which physically destroys them.
In addition, as useful amounts of flash memory storage are now affordable, the ruggedness of flash memory and the ability to stack chips to provide slim package designs have made NAND flash the choice non-volatile storage technology for mobile devices.
The deal also extends the existing patent cross-licensing deal between the two companies, and includes a NAND flash memory supply agreement for Samsung to provide chips to Seagate for solid-state drives and other products.
FORBES: Seagate To Buy Samsung's Hard-Drive Unit For $1.375B
WD's innovative hybrid technology pairs MLC NAND flash storage for fast SSD-like data throughput and instant-on responsiveness with magnetic disks for efficient, high-capacity storage.
ENGADGET: Western Digital builds 5mm-thick hybrid hard drive, Ultrabook makers sign on early
In the spot market, according to the web site DRAMeXchange, prices today jumped 5% in the spot market for DRAMs, with 10%-20% increased for NAND flash memory.
FORBES: Memory Chip Prices Spike After Quake On Tighter Supplies
Intel's shares tumbled in January, when it said lower-than-expected demand for the NAND flash memory chips used in digital media players and other gizmos would weigh down earnings (see "Intel's Stock Slammed"), and investors are counting on Otellini to fix that business.
The top-of-the-line Sanshara drives employ synchronous NAND technology and deliver the best speed and performance available in flash-based storage.
ENGADGET: Modbook Pro to launch with SSD storage, up for pre-order October 3rd
Samsung's 128Gb NAND flash is based on a 3-bit multi-level-cell design and 10nm-class process technology.
Falling prices for everything from the DRAM memory used to make PCs run faster to the NAND flash memory powering digital media players--have sent Micron's shares down 59% over the past year and about 74% over the past two years.
Hybrid hard drives combine NAND flash and magnetic disks, simplifying storage-element integration for OEM customers and providing a host of end user benefits: superior performance, responsiveness, lower power consumption, greater operating shock tolerance, and data protection.
ENGADGET: Western Digital builds 5mm-thick hybrid hard drive, Ultrabook makers sign on early
Utilizing 128Gb NAND flash memory, Samsung will expand its supply of 128-gigabyte (GB) memory cards, which can store as many as sixteen 8GB full HD video files.
The P7 will be available in 4, 8 and 16GB Nand flash models, making the player slimmer and lighter than HDD-type PMPs, and also more durable.
ENGADGET: 4.3-inch P7 highlights iriver's CES 2009 PMP lineup
Despite the looming threat of being replaced by phase-change memory, contemporary memory modules aren't quite ready to be shown the door -- engineers at Macronix have found a way to revive spent NAND flash cells.
ENGADGET: Macronix plans to heat up flash memory to keep it from burning out
The upgrade, he writes in a research note, reflects improving 2011 prospects for NAND flash memory demand, driven by tablets, smart phones and solid-state drives.
FORBES: SanDisk Rallies On Raymond James Upgrade; Bullish On NAND
Gerra writes that a key issue for SanDis is that NAND flash content in ultrabooks is tracking far below expectations, with an average of 32-40 GB, rather than initial speculation of 128-256 GB, as consumer opt for models with hybrid drives that still include spinning media rather than shunning traditional hard drives altogether.
FORBES: SanDisk: Baird Cuts Rating On Weakness In NAND Demand
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