From MP3 players, mobile and smart phones to portable computer drives, millions of people around the world are looking for small devices that are capable of storing large amounts of data. For many, flash memory is the answer.

Over the past few years, the flash memory market has quickly become a significant part of the overall semiconductor market. Some predict that flash memory will soon compete with the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) market for dominance within the memory sector. They also expect the flash memory market –which has won 65 percent of the U.S. and worldwide markets in 2007 – to hold the strongest market growth over the next years among other semiconductor product categories.

Source: IC Insight

Given its market size and projected growth, flash memory is likely to have an increased impact on the global semiconductor industry, and the decisions that flash memory producers make are likely to have a significant influence on industry development as well. Some firms have shifted their production from other products to flash memory. While, others have moved to long-term deals with certain flash memory producers/consumers.

The latter applies to SanDisk, the world’s largest supplier of flash storage card products, which had opened its first production facility – SanDisk Semiconductor Co. Ltd. (SDSS) – in Shanghai in 2006. The plant produces a flash memory-based chip package called System-in-a-Package (SiP) which is particularly valuable in mobile phones in addition to 4 and 8 memory-die stacks required in high capacity microSD, SDHC™ and Memory Stick Micro™ (M2) cards for mobile devices. Samsung Electronics Co. has also opened 300mm NAND Flash memory wafer plant in Texas, US last June 2007.

Flash memory, which first appeared in the early 1980s, came in response to the rise of the consumer electronics market. This rise fueled flash memory market growth and helped to make flash memory a prominent segment within the semiconductor industry.

Broadly speaking, flash memory ideally suits the consumer electronics market, because it enjoys a quality that the market demands: mobility. For example, cell phones, a major application for flash memory, require data storage to save and store numbers and perform other convenient functions. As cell phones increasingly offer advanced multimedia functions including high resolution cameras video and music players, flash memory provides larger memory capacities that are able to store high resolution digital photos and many hours of music and video. Therefore the cell phone market is considered one of the most important markets for flash memory.

MicroSDHC™ flash memory card from SanDisk, which was especially designed for phone manufacturers and mobile network operators, allows consumers to store a combination of 1,500 songs, 3,600 photos and 24.5 hours of video. While, Toshiba multi-chip package (MCP) memory, allows users to get the most out of 2- and 3-megapixel cameras and store up to 35 hours of music recorded at a bit rate of 128 kbps.

In addition to cell phones, flash memory’s cutting-edge technology is also moving towards PCs. Analysts predict that makers of the next-generation of notebook PCs –with no moving parts and pocket-sized video players with huge storage capacities – will be spending over US$20 billion a year on Flash memory by 2010. By 2012, flash memory-based drives are expected to replace hard disk drives.

iSuppi Corporation predicts that the number of flash memory products for portable media players (PMPs) such as MP3 players, is expected to rise to 150.2 million units by 2011, more than 25 times the 5.9 million units that shipped in 2006, while Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), will increase to 35.3 million units in 2011, slightly more than the 29.3 million in 2006. (see chart1)

Source: iSuppli Corporation

For photographers, who look for high performance, larger capacities and clarity and detail in their images, flash memory cards are becoming very important. SanDisk, Lexar and KODAK offers a number of high performance memory cards can reduce the lag time between shots significantly and optimizes full-motion video capture capability.

Flash memory has also prompted the growth of new consumer applications. Flash memory now is an important component in popular devices such as DVD players, digital cameras, MP3 players, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and global positioning systems (GPS).

Given the capabilities and attractiveness of flash memory to the consumer market, it is clear why demand for it has rapidly grown. Flash memory allowed existing electronic products to adopt mobility qualities they did not have before and thus opened them up to new and very large consumer markets.