TECHnalysis Research Blog Extra

September 8, 2014
SanDisk: Driving Flash Forward

One of the most important developments driving the improved performance of all our latest devices isn’t actually the processor inside the devices, but the storage. Flash memory, in particular, helps to overcome some of the inherent bottlenecks in system designs for tablets, smartphones, PCs and more by allowing the increasingly speedy CPUs and GPUs to get faster access to the data they need.

Until recently, however, getting access to speedy, robust flash memory has come at a relatively steep cost to device makers, particularly as they moved into larger capacities. Thanks to improvements in manufacturing capabilities, flash memory vendors such as SanDisk have been able to bring price points down, while still offering high performance. In particular, the ability to store three bits per cell—a technology SanDisk refers to as X3—has brought about new price-performance ratios that have attracted the attention and interest of even low-cost device makers.

This message came through loud and clear at SanDisk’s recent FutureProof Storage customer event held in Shenzhen, China, where key members of the rapidly expanding China Tech Ecosystem—including Rockchip, TCL, Allwinner, HiSilicon, MediaTek and others—came together to look at and discuss the state of current mobile device designs.

Through a series of presentations, including a keynote speech that I gave on trends in mobility, as well as several by SanDisk executives and technology partners Rockchip and MediaTek, a vision of how connected devices such as tablets, smartphones and PCs are expected to evolve over the next few years was laid out.

Some of the key takeaways were that performance-intensive activities, such as watching HD and even 4K video, as well as increased personal photo and video taking, were going to be placing increased strains on the overall device performance, but particularly the storage subsystem. In order to adequately meet those needs, storage vendors have to offer increasing capacities, but at price points that are acceptable to vendors who are trying to maintain aggressive pricing for their finished devices. In addition, it became clear that different types of workloads require different types of flash storage because each application has different requirements for reading and writing data into storage.

In addition to device-related issues, SanDisk executives also described the future of flash memory developments, explaining the gradual transition towards 3D NAND flash and, eventually, Resistive RAM (ReRAM) technologies. The company also discussed the opportunities for flash storage in the enterprise, where servers are being tasked with everything from streaming enormous numbers of live video streams to analyzing big data to working with the wide range of sensor-based devices that are starting to form the Internet of Things (IOT).

The event concluded with a number of frank roundtable discussions with members of the Chinese press as well as executives from other large component partners such as Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm and nVidia, discussing opportunities and challenges in consumer devices, PCs, tablets, smartphones, wearables, online storage services and more. One of the consistent themes heard throughout was the need to provide better communication across the growing range of devices that individuals own and use and how fast, reliable storage—both on the devices and in the cloud—can help meet the growing expectations that consumers will have.

The bottom line is that storage demands are continuing to increase but so is the pressure on pricing. With the appropriate kinds of technologies—such as SanDisk’s X3—those two potential conflicting trends can actually coalesce and still keep the industry moving forward.

Here's a link to the original column: http://techpinions.com/sandisk-driving-flash-forward/34631