DailyTech - SanDisk and Toshiba to Build Massive NAND Fab

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Hardware SanDisk and Toshiba to Build Massive NAND Fab
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - April 7, 2006 3:20 AM

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10 comment(s) - last by Phynaz.. on Apr 10 at 2:35 PM

SandDisk and Toshiba says NAND flash memory will become the next big local storage medium after the hard disk

In the interest of supply and demand, SanDisk and Toshiba have entered a joint agreement to build a massive NAND fabrication facility in Japan. Due to the rise in demand and sales of devices such as portable MP3 players and other portable storage devices, NAND flash memory technology is clearly becoming the storage technology of choice. In regards to capacity, hard drive based storage is also popular, but due to the risk of damaging the hard drive because of sudden movements, NAND flash technology offers data security fo consumers.

Both SanDisk and Toshiba are pooling resources together to build a large 300mm fabrication facility to compliment Toshiba's current 300mm facility which is operating in Yokkaichi, Japan. According to Mr. Masashi Muromachi, Toshiba Semiconductor's President and CEO said "we will maintain leadership in the market through continued proactive capital investments in production capacity and advanced process technology and multi-level cell technology. Fab 4 will further secure our ability to respond to demand for higher-density NAND flash in this rapidly growing market."

The two companies have announced that construction of the new facility will begin in August of this year and is expected to be complete by Q4'07. Initial production runs of NAND flash memory will also commence in Q4'07.

Intel also recently spoke about the future of NAND flash memory technology at IDF earlier this year. The company intends to integrate NAND flash memory into laptop and desktop designs to enable such things as faster boot and load times as well as reduce the energy costs associated with mechanical storage technologies.

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interesting...

By ksherman on 4/7/2006 12:28:08 PM , Rating: 2

There is an awful lot of co-ops these days... so many companies seem to be teaming up to get something accomplished. Nice that they can do that with out buying the other company...

RE: interesting...

By Phynaz on 4/7/2006 2:16:00 PM , Rating: 2

That's because a fab costs so much. I just read an article that said a fab built today costs $4.1B. That's up from $3B just a couple of years ago.

That's a pretty significant liability that very few companies can take on. TSMC, IBM, UMC and Intel are the only companies I can think of with that kind of financial power.

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RE: interesting...

By Khenglish on 4/7/2006 4:16:02 PM , Rating: 2

You forgot AMD. Recently they announced that they are spending 3.8B on a new Dresden fab, with construction starting this summer. Some of that money is going to fabs 30 and 36, but most is for the new one.

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RE: interesting...

By Khenglish on 4/7/2006 4:21:10 PM , Rating: 2

I made a mistake. It's 5.8B not 3.8B. Here's the link...

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=1645

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RE: interesting...

By masher2

(blog) on 4/8/2006 10:29:05 AM , Rating: 2

AMD partners with IBM for much of its process technology. Also, AMD has outsourced some of its CPU production to Chartered Semiconductor...the first chips are due out in a couple of months.

The semi industry is just too big and expensive for most players to go it alone today.

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RE: interesting...

By Phynaz on 4/10/2006 2:35:11 PM , Rating: 2

Also, Fuji is actually the company that puts up the money for AMD fabs.

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Replacing the HDD?

By TomZ on 4/7/2006 10:03:54 AM , Rating: 2

I think it is pretty optimistic to predict that NAND flash memory will replace the hard disc. Maybe that could be the case if HDD technology was standing still, but there is still lots of R&D, so overtaking that will be trying to surpass a moving target. Good luck!

RE: Replacing the HDD?

By sandytheguy on 4/7/2006 4:49:35 PM , Rating: 2

Flash won't replace the HDD, but it can take over boot drive functionality. Not to mention small laptops can benefit greatly from losing the HDD. It will take a real long time, if at all, for flash to even get within 5x the cost per gig of hard drives though. Right now HDD space can be had for $.35 per gig while flash runs for like $100 per gig. I can't wait for cheap SATA flash drives though.

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Ummm out of touch with reality?

By drwho9437 on 4/7/2006 11:27:48 PM , Rating: 2

Try ~25 USB a GB packaged... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...

I expect to see 20GB flash drives for portable use in the very near term.

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