SanDisk celebrates flash memory’s 25th anniversary

SanDisk Corporation solutions recently marked the 25-year anniversary of its transformational technology flash memory, widely used by consumers and businesses in smartphones, tablets, ultra-thin laptops, data centers and other electronic devices.

"We started SanDisk in 1988 with the belief that flash memory would enable entire industries and enrich the lives of billions of people," said Sanjay Mehrotra, president, chief executive officer and co-founder of SanDisk. "Demand for flash is greater than ever, and it's an exciting time to lead an industry that holds such tremendous potential for the future," he added.

Flash memory fuels the three forces behind this trend, mobile computing, pervasive connectivity and the proliferation of digital content.

This year, individuals will create and consume 2.7 zettabytes (ZB) of digital content such as movies, music, documents and other data, according to IDC1. This represents 20 times the amount of digital content from 2005.

"Flash memory plays a crucial role in enabling the content boom due to its low cost, ease of use and widespread adoption by consumers and professionals. Whether it's a tablet that lets consumers access information on the go or the server behind a social media site, flash memory enables many of today's most popular applications," said Mario Morales, VP, semiconductors and EMS, IDC.

As digital content proliferates, IT organizations are equipping themselves with next-generation servers, aided by SSDs, in order to handle the rapidly increasing data. "Flash memory has become pervasive in the cloud. Data centers using flash memory-based solid state drives offer an attractive benefit to cloud companies because SSDs offer the most cost-effective means for distributing information faster within existing infrastructure, often at orders of magnitude increase over HDD performance. These and other benefits are why we anticipate enterprise SSD unit sales to increase 250 % within the next four years, " said Joseph Unsworth, research VP, Gartner.

Smartphones and tablets using embedded flash memory chips are booming, and ultra-thin laptops using flash memory-based SSDs are redefining the notebook category. Because of flash memory, these devices are highly responsive and offer a more enjoyable experience in smaller, lighter and more durable form factors.

"Fifty years from now, people will look back and realize that flash memory was one of the most important technology advances of our time," said Tim Bajarin, analyst and futurist, Creative Strategies. "For companies around the world, flash memory has revolutionized their business from how they design products to how their customers use them," he added.