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SanDisk stock surges on buyout rumors

Updated at 5:00 p.m. with closing share price.

SanDisk for Sale? The stock price says so.

The world's largest maker of flash memory cards for digital cameras jumped 31 percent, or 4.18 points, Friday on rumors that Samsung would buy the company.

This follows a recent spate of rumors including one that said Seagate was interested in SanDisk. While Samsung already makes flash memory and is a leader in the emerging solid state drive market, Seagate does not sell SSDs and is looking to get into the market.

Samsung doesn't need SanDisk to grow; the … Read more

Samsung contemplating SanDisk acquisition

Samsung Electronics is looking into snapping up SanDisk, according to a late-Thursday post on PaidContent.

The South Korean consumer electronics maker confirmed that it is exploring "various opportunities" with SanDisk, but it noted that no decisions have been made, according to PaidContent, which cited an online Korean report.

Samsung reportedly is taking a look at SanDisk as a means to reduce its NAND flash memory costs, given that it pays the chipmaker roughly $354 million in annual licensing fees, according to the report. SanDisk is a strong player in the market for NAND flash memory, which is found … Read more

SanDisk card perfect for shiny, new Nikon D90

Already saving up to get the new Nikon D90? You might want to add at least another $65 to your budget for SanDisk's new 30MB/s Extreme III SDHC cards.

Available worldwide in September, the cards offer a 50 percent speed boost from 20MB/s cards, and the Nikon D90 is the industry's first dSLR to take advantage of the speed.

That means that with the 30MB/s Extreme III, the D90 can record 39 6MB JPEG images at 4.5 frames per second in continuous shooting mode. Getting them off is almost as fast, too, when used … Read more

Sandisk's Cruzer Titanium USB Drive performs automatic data backups

We're a big fan of USB keys for their convenience, small form factor, and price per gigabyte. They're a quick, simple way to transport data through a connection that can be found on every modern computer, but what happens when companies take an already good idea and add extra features? This is exactly the case with the 4GB SanDisk Cruzer Titanium Plus.

Sandisk partnered with BeInSync to build their automatic online backup software into the $50 Cruzer Titanium Plus, so every time you plug the key into a computer with an Internet connection, all of your data is … Read more

While Intel touts Netbooks, SanDisk cites solid-state 'hype'

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--At the Flash Memory Summit taking place here this week, makers of solid-state drives cited their worries about lackluster performance on Windows Vista and, with no small irony, the dangers of hype.

Solid-state drives have become the de facto storage device for the category of small, inexpensive notebook PCs called Metbooks, and they're offered in high-profile laptops such as the MacBook Air and ThinkPad X300.

While Don Larson, product line manager at Intel NAND Products Group, said the tiny size and low power requirements of Netbooks make them an ideal product for solid-state drives (adding that … Read more

SanDisk already looking beyond flash memory

SanDisk sees flash memory maxing out during the next decade and believes 3D technology is the answer.

Flash memory disk supplier SanDisk said this week that it is looking beyond flash memory because of anticipated limitations. SanDisk intends to tap into 3D read-write memory technology it acquired with the purchase of Matrix Semiconductor back in 2005.

3D memory chips can store more data vertically, allowing greater densities. While conventional integrated circuits put all active circuitry on the silicon substrate, SanDisk's 3D architecture deposits multiple layers of active memory elements so that circuitry extends vertically as well.

Speaking at this week's second-quarter earnings conference call, Sanjay Mehrotra, SanDisk president and chief operating officer, said his company is "developing the 3D read/write memory that we believe will replace NAND flash sometime in the next decade when it can no longer be economically scaled."

This follows a Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure earlier in the quarter covering an agreement that SanDisk signed with Toshiba to collaborate on the development of rewriteable 3D memory. SanDisk and Toshiba "will jointly perform research and development" on 3D memory, the companies said in the disclosure.

SanDisk has made progress with the technology since it acquired Matrix, according to Chairman and CEO Eli Harari, speaking earlier this week duing the earnings conference call. "SanDisk has been making good, steady progress since our acquisition three years ago of Matrix Semiconductor...We currently have more than 200 issued patents that cover key elements of 3D rewritable memory technology," Harari said.

Based on these statements and its collaboration with Toshiba, SanDisk believes 3D memory, though challenging, is a viable successor to flash. Commercialization presents "significant challenges" but the "effort is worth the prize as 3D memory is a potential game changer," Harari said. The technology would "achieve the cost structure to disrupt hard disk drive in the coming decade," he said.… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 771: A Monster episode of Iron butt proportions

Oh man. Molly is out for one day and look what happens. Well the Monster story comes form the cable makers attempting to sue the makers of a deer salt lick. Seriously. And Iron Butt refers to a character from X-Men after we got schooled on Magneto by Craig from Omaha. And we talked about porn too. Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 771

Episode 771

TiVo and Amazon team up http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/technology/22tivo.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

What is Apple’s mystery product? http://blogs.eweek.com/applewatch/content/rumors/what_is_apples_mystery_product.html… Read more

SanDisk: Windows Vista not optimized for solid-state drives

SanDisk said Monday that Windows Vista is not optimized for solid-state drives, delaying the delivery of optimized drives until next year.

Solid-state drives (SSDs) are used instead of hard disk drives in select high-end notebook PCs today such as the Apple MacBook Air and Toshiba Portege R500.

The next generation of SSDs will use multilevel cell (MLC) technology, which will require a more sophisticated controller--a crucial component in solid-state drives. These drives will have capacities ranging up to 128GB, 160GB, and later, 256GB. MLC drives are expected to appear in a wider selection of notebooks later this year.

Speaking during … Read more