GLG News by Council Members who Know SRAM, DRAM and FRAM/MRAM

Jim HandyDirectorObjective Analysis

Major Shift in PC Memory Could Harm DRAM Makers

July 19, 2011

Analysis of:Could NAND Flash Kill DRAM in PCs? | www.cio.com

DRAM will soon have to compete against NAND flash in the PC.  Benchmarks have shown that, dollar-for-dollar, NAND provides more performance than does DRAM.This is bad enough news for Micron, Samsung, and Hynix, all of whom make both DRAM and NAND flash, but it is positively deadly for DRAM makers who do not have a strong NAND flash position: Elpida, Powerchip, ProMOS, and Nanya.SSDs will continue to lose out to HDDs in the PC, since a NAND layer gives SSD speeds at a HDD prices & capacities.

Thomas CoughlinPresidentCoughlin Associates

Strong Storage Growth for the Professional Media and Entertainment Industry

May 16, 2011

A new report on digital storage for the professional media and entertainment industry projects strong growth driven by higher resolution stereoscopic content as well as new channels for content distribution and the increasing digitization of historical analog content. 5.6X storage capacity growth and 1.7X revenue growth are expected between 2011 and 2016.

Thomas CoughlinPresidentCoughlin Associates

Seagate Mobile Storage for the iPad and other Apple Mobile OS devices

May 16, 2011

Seagate Technology introduced its GoFlex Satellite Mobile Wireless Storage device offering 500 GB storage capacity through a WiFi connection. The battery powered external hard drive allows users to take up to 500 GB of content with them and access it from their iPad, iPhone or other wireless iOS device. The product release is planned for July 2011. Technology originally developed for DAVE several years ago finally finds a market where it fills a need.

Thomas CoughlinPresidentCoughlin Associates

SanDisk Acquires Pliant in Continuation of Record Storage Acquisition Season

May 16, 2011

Sandisk agreed to acquire Pliant Technology for about $327M. SanDisk is most known for its consumer products although the company has offered several SSD products over the last decade. Pliant is a startup company founded by HDD industry veterans and has made a name for itself in the enterprise SSD space. The acquisition continues the trend of storage company mergers that have changed the landscape of the industry in the last 3 months.

Thomas CoughlinPresidentCoughlin Associates

HDD Suppliers Now Down to Three

April 20, 2011

Seagate and Samsung announced that Seagate would acquire Samsung’s HDD business for $1.38 B. In addition to the HDD business Seagate ensures supply of flash memory for its hybrid HDDs and enterprise storage business. Samsung gets 10% ownership of Seagate and a seat on the board. Samsung also gets HDDs from Seagate to meet its product needs.

Thomas CoughlinPresidentCoughlin Associates

Japanese HDD Companies Experience Component Supply Problems Due to Earthquakes

April 8, 2011

Hitachi GST and Toshiba have indicated that due to electrical part shortages they will be constrained on their ability to ship HDDs. Hitachi has reported that this impacts all their desktop supply lines and it may impact their notebook drives as well. Toshiba is also experiencing critical HDD IC shortages that will limit their ability to build HDDs in the short term. Continuing earthquakes and power issues could make the supply of these components questionable for some time.

Thomas CoughlinPresidentCoughlin Associates

Seagate Refreshes Enterprise Storage, Including First Enterprise Product

March 19, 2011

Seagate introduced a variety of new enterprise level storage products. These products included traditional enterprise products including a 2.5 inch 10 k RPM drive with 900 GB. The company also announced its first enterprise solid state drives, Pulsar.2 and Pulsar XT.2. These SSD products are at least partially the result of the partnership between Samsung and Seagate announced last year.

Thomas CoughlinPresidentCoughlin Associates

HDDs and Flash Memory, Better Together

March 17, 2011

Solid state drives are in less than 1% of computers after years of marketing saying they would replace HDDs. Flash memory has faster performance than HDDs, particularly for reading but it is considerably more expensive. Combining flash memory and HDDs together can give performance approaching solid state drives while offering prices comparable to hard disk drives. Hybrid and paired storage putting flash memory and HDDs together could put flash memory in most computers.

Thomas CoughlinPresidentCoughlin Associates

Obsolescence in Action?

March 17, 2011

In late February 2011 Intel and Apple announced that the latest MacBook Pro computers will include a Thunderbolt port. Thunderbolt had been announced previously by Intel as Light Peak and offered initial data rates as high as 10 Gbps. The first Thunderbolt products will use copper cables although Light Peak was to use fiber optics to achieve up to 100 Gbps data rates. Thunderbolt is much faster than USB (currently up to 5 Gbps) and may displace this long standing peripheral interface.

Thomas CoughlinPresidentCoughlin Associates

WD Acquisition of Hitachi GST Creates Dominant HDD Player

March 7, 2011

WD announced that they reached an agreement to purchase Hitachi GST for $4.3 B. Unit shipments of the combined company could achieve close to 50% of the total market, assuming no share loss. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter assuming regulatory approval with Hitachi retaining a 10% stake in the combined company. Current HGST CEO, Steve Milligan will be president of the new business reporting to John Coyne.

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