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SanDisk to begin making 'X4' flash chips

SanDisk is disclosing at a San Francisco technology conference Tuesday that it will begin mass production of memory chips that will allow consumers to store up to 64GB of data on tiny flash cards.

The Milpitas, Calif., company's X4 technology will pack four bits of data into each memory cell. To date, flash memory chipmakers typically stored one bit or two bits per cell.

SanDisk--the largest supplier of retail flash cards--is making the disclosure jointly with Toshiba at the 2009 International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). The two companies will use 43-nanometer manufacturing process technology to make the chips. … Read more

SanDisk suffers $1.86 billion loss amid slump

SanDisk reported a net loss of $1.86 billion, as it takes steps to reduce output and conserve cash amid a collapsing flash memory chip market and weak consumer demand.

The flash memory chip supplier's fourth-quarter net loss was $1.86 billion, or a loss of $8.25 per share, compared to GAAP net income of $106 million, or 45 cents per share, in the same period last year. (GAAP stands for Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.)

Charges, including a combined pre-tax goodwill and intangible asset impairment charge of $1.02 billion, due to a sustained decline in SanDisk's … Read more

Sony, SanDisk working on 2TB Memory Sticks

That's 2,000GB or 2,000,000MB of flash storage for noobs.

The Memory Sticks don't have an official name yet, and Sony and SanDisk are temporarily calling them collectively "Memory Stick format for Extended High Capacity." Format licensing is expected to begin this year. Once completed, we'll see storage capacities for these flash media (Memory Stick Pro DUO, Memory Stick Pro-HG, Memory Stick Micro, and Memory Stick HG Micro) hit up to 2 terabytes, with maximum data transfer rates of 20MBps (on a 4-bit parallel interface) and 60MBps (on an 8-bit parallel interface) for … Read more

Analyst: iPod, Zune, servers to drive SSD growth

Solid-state drives may see heady growth despite a sliding world economy, according to a report released Tuesday by a market research company. Devices like the Apple iPod and iPhone are expected to drive growth.

Flash memory revenue in the solid-state drive segment will see compound annual growth rates of over 100 percent through 2012, according to market research firm In-Stat. The type of flash used in solid-state drives is referred to as NAND flash.

"You're starting from quite a small base. Back in 2006, you're in the tens of millions (of dollars) kind of a number. By … Read more

Behind the design: frog designer Robert Curtis talks about creating SanDisk's new flash drives

SanDisk, the world's largest supplier of flash storage cards, has introduced an innovative new family of USB flash drives, including the world's first backup USB flash drive with simple backup software activation at the touch of a button. frog design, my employer, provided the design language for the entire new SanDisk USB family, and I asked my colleague Robert Curtis, executive creative director industrial design at frog, a few questions about the design process:

What was the first thing SanDisk said to you about the design when they initially approached you and your team? Robert Curtis: SanDisk is … Read more

Buyer beware: Solid-state drive prices vary--a lot

Updated at 9:40 a.m. PST with additional information about SLC-based solid-state drives.

Some solid-state drives are more equal than others--or, to put it another way, command higher prices than rival drives, despite being seemingly quite similar.

SanDisk and Toshiba offer a good lesson. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, SanDisk said it would start shipping 240GB SSDs in "mid 2009," priced at only $499. (Next to a comparable hard-disk drive, that may be a lot of money, but for a solid-state drive, it's dirt cheap.)

At the Toshiba booth, however, the story was very different. A Toshiba representative said his company's comparable 256GB SSDs are priced at $800. And this discrepancy is coming from two companies that get their flash chips from the same source: a joint-manufacturing operation in Japan.

Below are the prices Toshiba representatives were stating on the show floor versus prices that SanDisk announced.

Toshiba/SanDisk solid-state drive pricing:

Toshiba 512GB: $1,600, SanDisk N/A Toshiba 256GB: $800, SanDisk 240GB: $499 Toshiba 128GB: $400, SanDisk 120GB: $249 Toshiba 64GB: $175, SanDisk 60GB: $149

Throw Intel into the mix, and it gets more confusing. "Introductory" pricing for Intel 160GB versions of its X25-M and X18-M Serial ATA (SATA) solid-state drive is $945 for less than 1,000 units. … Read more