SanDisk to Supply NAND Flash and Controllers, Qimonda to Supply Mobile DRAM

SanDisk to Supply NAND Flash and Controllers, Qimonda to Supply Mobile DRAM

SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) and Qimonda AG (NYSE:QI) entered into an agreement to jointly develop and manufacture MCPs utilizing SanDisk’s NAND flash and controllers and Qimonda’s low power mobile DRAM. The collaboration targets the fast growing need for high capacity, integrated memory solutions of data-intensive mobile applications. This agreement will be executed through a jointly owned company based in Portugal, subject to closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.

The MCPs will be sold by Qimonda and SanDisk through their existing sales channels to mobile handset manufacturers. According to iSuppli, MCPs continue to be the preferred package type for placing embedded memory into mobile handsets. iSuppli projects MCP revenues in the mobile handset market to reach nine billion dollars by 2011 with NAND and mobile DRAM combinations being the vast majority of memory MB shipped in MCPs1

“Gaining access to SanDisk’s leading-edge flash memory and controller technology and low cost fabs broadens our memory product portfolio,” said Kin Wah Loh, Chief Executive Officer at Qimonda. “Qimonda now completes its product offering for handheld consumer devices by offering advanced, high density MCP solutions in addition to a complete portfolio of low power DRAM products. Offering MCPs with advanced mobile DRAM and high capacity NAND Flash will allow Qimonda to optimize the architecture of memory subsystems used in mobile phones to address the growing need of major handset vendors for flexible bandwidth and memory utilization at competitive levels.“

“By collaborating with Qimonda, a DRAM market leader with strong expertise in low power mobile DRAM, SanDisk aims to increase its participation in the fast growing MCP market for multimedia handsets, thereby rounding out our one-stop-shop storage solutions for our handset customers,” said Eli Harari, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at SanDisk. “Through this partnership, each of our companies is leveraging the technical skills, IP and capacity investments of its partner to offer an integrated, competitive solution for our respective customers.”

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