SanDisk, Samsung renew semiconductor agreements

SanDisk, Samsung sign agreements on chip cross-licensing and flash memory

* The Associated Press
* On Wednesday May 27, 2009, 11:09 am EDT

SanDisk Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. said Wednesday that they renewed their semiconductor cross-licensing agreement and struck a deal guaranteeing SanDisk a portion of Samsung's flash memory output.

The deal replaces an agreement that expires August 14 and runs for seven years.

The announcement sent shares of SanDisk, based in Milpitas, Calif., up $2.15, or 15.8 percent, to $15.72 in morning trading.

The companies did not disclose financial details of the arrangement.

South Korea-based Samsung is the world's largest supplier of NAND, a type of flash memory used in cell phones and digital cameras. The company offered last year to buy SanDisk for $26 a share. SanDisk rebuffed the offer and Samsung pulled out of its bid in October, after months of negotiations.

Sandisk intros world's fastest MLC SSD family.

Affordable third-generation SSDs based on multi-level cell (MLC) flash technology, equivalent to a 40,000 rpm HDD



CES 2009, LAS VEGAS, USA: SanDisk Corp. unveiled its third-generation family of solid-state drives (SSDs). Using multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory technology, SanDisk's G3 Series establishes new benchmarks in performance and price-performance leadership in the SSD industry.

Designed as drop-in replacements for hard-disk drives (HDDs) in notebook PCs, the initial members in the SanDisk G3 family are SSD C25-G3 and SSD C18-G3 in the standard 2.5" and 1.8" form factors respectively, each available with a SATA-II interface. Available in capacities of 60, 120 and 240GB*, the unit MSRPs are $149, $249 and $499, respectively.

The G3 SSDs are more than five times faster than the fastest 7,200 RPM HDDs and more than twice as fast as SSDs shipping in 2008, clocking in at 40,000 vRPM1 and anticipated sequential performance of 200MB/s read and 140MB/s write3. The G3 SSDs provide a Longterm Data Endurance (LDE) of 160 terabytes written (TBW) for the 240GB version, sufficient for over 100 years of typical user usage. (2,3)

Sandisk's MLC SSD family"SanDisk's G3 SSD has met the demand of a 120GB SSD at less than $250 with an exceptional user experience" said Rich Heye, sr. vp and general manager, Solid State Drives (SSD) business unit, SanDisk. "Three key features developed by SanDisk enable this new design: a new SSD algorithm called ExtremeFFSTM allows random write performance to potentially improve by as much as 100 times over conventional algorithms; reliable 43nm multi-level cell (MLC) all bit-line (ABL) NAND flash; and SanDisk's new SSD controller, which ties together the NAND and the algorithm."

"With large capacities and aggressive pricing, SSDs are poised to enter mainstream corporate notebooks in 2009." Heye explained, "Given the current economic environment, corporate IT managers have also described a desire to extend the service life of existing notebooks. These notebooks are already maxed out on DRAM, and struggle to meet users' performance expectations. These existing WinXP notebooks can be upgraded to a 60GB SSD for $149, resulting in a system that frequently outperforms a new notebook with a HDD, thereby delaying the need for large capital purchases."

"Web-Feet Research has tested the replacement of the HDDs in three year old Notebooks with SSDs and has found an improvement in boot times, application loading and general user responsiveness that, in many cases, exceeds what a new notebook with an HDD can deliver," said ,Alan Niebel, Principal at Web-feet Research. "In these challenging economic times, IT managers are looking for ways to reduce IT spending without adversely affecting their user base and the SanDisk G3 SSD solution extends the notebook replacement cycle an additional two years at minimal cost."

The SanDisk G3 SSDs will be available to this market in mid 2009, in a 2.5" PATA configuration expressly for this purpose. In addition, the SanDisk G3 SSDs will be available on sandisk.com for do-it-yourself (DIY) enthusiasts. "An SSD upgrade improves the user experience like nothing else you can do to a computer." Heye concluded.

SanDisk's flash technology is produced at fabrication plants in Yokkaichi, Japan, where SanDisk and its partner, Toshiba, share the output. The SSD controller and firmware were designed by SanDisk expressly for the G3 SSD.

SanDisk and Sony Expand Memory Stick Capacity

Monday, January 12 06:43 am
Computer Business Online ComputerWire Staff

SanDisk and Sony have announced the joint development of two expanded Memory Stick formats to achieve a maximum storage capacity of 2-terabytes and enable a maximum data-transfer speed of 60 mbps. Skip related content

The new Memory Stick Format for Extended High Capacity of up to 2TB of data is 60 times higher than the Memory Stick PRO format's current 32GB limit. The new format is scheduled to support the MagicGate copyright protection technology and Access Control Function.

Memory Stick HG Micro format has an 8-bit parallel interface and offers an increased interface clock frequency of 60MHz, enabling 60Mbps data transfer speed, which is three times faster than the conventional serial 4-bit parallel interface and 40MHz interface.

Yoram Cedar, executive vice president of OEM and corporate engineering at SanDisk, said: "SanDisk and Sony share a long collaborative history of developing products and technologies. Both companies have enjoyed great successes with the Memory Stick PRO format, and the expansion of these formats to improve capacity and performance that will significantly impact mobile and consumer electronics markets."

Since September 1998 when the Memory Stick format was introduced, shipments are estimated to have surpassed 500 million units.