Flash-based drives will contribute to NAND market growth

By Jim Carbone -- Purchasing, 5/1/2008 1:23:00 PM

The global NAND flash memory market will grow from $15 billion in 2007 to $29.6 billion in 2011 as more flash will be used in more electronics equipment, says researcher IC Insights.

Flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) will help drive flash memory demand as more portable computers use SSDs rather than hard drives.

Scott Nelson, vice president, memory business unit, for Toshiba America Electronic Components in Irvine, Calif., says NAND flash won't replace the hard-drive market but co-exist with it.

"The price per gigabyte for flash will never be equal to hard drive,” he says. However, the attributes of SSDs in certain applications make flash attractive.

In a notebook computer, "if you can get the price to within $200-300, the consumer is more likely to adopt a solid-state drive because of the benefits in boot time and higher performance compared to hard drive. They will step up to make that purchase,” says Nelson.

He says SSDs are in the launch phase. Demand for solid-state drives in 2008 won’t be very strong, but will gain traction in 2009, he says.

"About a year ago we started our campaign for SSDs to replace traditional hard drives in laptops," says Michael Yang, product manager for flash marketing for Samsung Semiconductor in San Jose, Calif. Samsung introduced a 128 gigabyte drive for notebooks.

He says the laptop/notebook market was the obvious market to go after because the density requirements are less than a desktop. "The size really gives flash memory the benefit over hard drives," says Yang.

See also: NAND prices drop