Sandisk shedding capacity

[wparsonsgisnet]

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Sandisk is shedding some mfg ops:

 

SanDisk Out In A Flash - Forbes.com

 

The SD cards are not NAND, right?

[adan]

Yes, they are.

 

"In this regard NAND flash is similar to other secondary storage devices such as hard disks and optical media, and is thus very suitable for use in mass-storage devices such as memory cards. The first NAND-based removable media format was SmartMedia, and many others have followed, including MultiMediaCard, ............Secure Digital............, Memory Stick and xD-Picture Card."

 

- Wikipedia

[wparsonsgisnet]

Well, it seems that Sandisk is shedding that particular line.

 

"Who you gonna turn to?" "Ghostbusters!"

[geoff]

Well, it seems that Sandisk is shedding that particular line.

 

 

No, they are not.

 

You are confusing the flash memory chip component of memory cards with the memory card itself. Electronic chip manufacturing, including flash memory, is actually an extremely expensive, highly specialized business endeavor usually far out of reach of most companies. As an example, neither Dell, HP, Sun nor Apple manufacturer any of the chips used in their products.

 

At one point in time SanDisk felt it was a smart move to actually own the manufacturing of the flash memory chip component themselves—actually, to begin with, a joint venture partnership with Toshiba. However, such in-house manufacturing has actually placed a financial drain on the company as it has become clear that outsourcing is the cheaper approach, or more specifically selling a 30% portion of the joint venture back to Toshiba is the smarter move.

 

Very few memory card manufacturers actually make the memory chip component part of the memory card product they label. The exception being mainly Micron, Panasonic and Toshiba. All other memory card manufacturers outsource the flash memory chip component from one of these three or from another source such as Samsung, Hynix or Intel (through Micron).

 

In fact, many well known memory card products are OEMed (original equipment manufacturer), as a whole, elsewhere with the only main difference being a brand label.

 

There are many components that make up an actual memory card. Almost all of these parts are manufactured elsewhere. A good analogy is that of an external hard drive vendor such as LaCie. LaCie does not make the actually hard drive themselves. They are simply integrators that acquire parts from various sources, such as controller chips, power supplies, external cases, and combine them together to produce a product with their brand label on the outside.

 

It is helpful to not only know the various components, original sources and specific parts of products such as external hard drives and memory cards, but also to have an understanding of how well they are all combined together to construct a final product.

 

One external hard drive brand may utilize impressive rugged looking cases on the outside but scrip on inside parts—a mediocre power supply, controller chip or budget hard drive. Some memory card manufacturers might tout how fast their products are but cut corners on construction as a whole. There’s really a lot to understand and consider beyond a favorable review, big bucks marketing, or comments such as “it’s built like a tank” or “it works well for me.”

 

 

Geoff

myspace.com/geoffotos