SanDisk Corporation is a multinational corporation that designs, develops and manufactures flash memory storage solutions and software. The Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company is based in Silicon Valley and has more than half its sales outside the United States.

 

SanDisk was founded in 1988 by Dr. Eli Harari, Jack Yuan and Sanjay Mehrotra, non-volatile memory technology experts. SanDisk became a publicly traded company on NASDAQ in November 1995. As of March 2013, its market capitalization was over US$13 billion.

 

SanDisk’s flash memory storage products include solid-state drives (SSDs) and caching software for laptop, PC and enterprise applications; memory cards for smartphones and cameras; embedded flash drives for mobile phones and tablets, USB flash drives; and other flash-based products.

 

The company markets its products directly to businesses, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and consumers, as well as through a new distribution channel that offers SanDisk SSDs to a wider set of business customers including VARs, e-tailers and system integrators. SanDisk products are sold at more than 250,000 retail locations in more than 100 countries.

 

SanDisk is headquartered in Milpitas, California. The company has manufacturing facilities in China. It also has sales, operations, research and development, and administration in the U.S., China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates. The company has more than 4,600 employees worldwide.

 

SanDisk's product portfolio includes flash memory cards for mobile phones, digital cameras and camcorders; digital audio/video players; USB flash drives for consumers and the enterprise; embedded memory for mobile devices; and solid state drives for computers. SanDisk is a Silicon Valley-based S&P 500 company, with more than half its sales outside the United States.

 

History

Dr. Eli Harari developed the Floating Gate EEPROM which proved the practicality, reliability, manufacturability and endurance of semiconductor-based data storage. This pioneering work laid the foundation for the flash memory market that would significantly impact the consumer electronics industry, enabling new products across multiple categories.

 

In 1988, Dr. Harari launched the company that would become SanDisk with former Intel colleague Sanjay Mehrotra (now SanDisk President and Chief Executive Officer), and former Hughes Electronics colleague Jack Yuan.

 

Early on, SanDisk (then known as SunDisk) had recognized that digital cameras would need removable flash memory storage, and computers could become ever more mobile and light and would require a similar storage technology. 

 

Dr. Harari offered the removable flash memory card technology to Kodak for inclusion in their cameras in 1988. Kodak offered to fund the development with the condition that SanDisk offer a three-year exclusive contract for the “digital film” under the Kodak brand. Dr. Harari and SanDisk rejected the offer because he wanted competition in the marketplace to encourage growth of the flash memory industry.

 

Core markets

Flash memory has an extremely small form factor, helping it fit into ultra-slim electronics devices such as tablets, smartphones and thin-and-light laptops. Because flash memory contains no moving mechanical parts, it consumes less power and is considered rugged and more reliable than hard disk drives (HDDs).

 

Enterprise – The explosive growth and consumption of data in cloud-based computing and data centers is increasingly requiring network architectures that can enable real-time analytics and low latency, providing fast and reliable access to information. SanDisk serves this market with its enterprise SSDs and enterprise software products.

 

Computing – Tablets and ultra-thin notebooks carry with them certain requirements from manufacturer and technology suppliers, such as “instant on” functionality, a thin form factor, durability and low-power consumption. Because of these, flash memory has become the main storage technology for these computing devices. SanDisk supplies embedded flash drives and removable memory cards to virtually every major tablet and ultra-thin laptop manufacturer.

 

Mobile – Flash memory has become an essential component in smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices due to its large capacity storage and “mass market” price points, low power consumption and ruggedness inherent with no moving parts. SanDisk provides embedded flash drives and removable memory cards to almost every major smartphone and tablet maker.

 

Consumer Electronics – Flash technology is used in memory cards that go into digital camera, USB storage drives and portable music and video players. SanDisk creates and sells its own brand of USB flash drives and MP3 audio players.

 

Key product lines

Solid State Drives

• SATA SSDs

• SAS SSDs

• PCIe SSAs

 

Enterprise Software

• FlashSoft Software

• Membrain Software

 

Embedded Storage

• iNAND Embedded Flash Drives

• iSSD

 

Memory Cards

• SD Cards

• microSD Cards

• CompactFlash Cards

• Memory Stick PRO Duo

• Card Readers

 

Software & Services

• ExpressCache

• Cloud Catcher

• Media Manager

• Memory Zone

• SanDisk SecureAccess

 

Music & Video Players

• Sansa MP3 Players

 

USB Storage

• USB Flash Drives

 

Corporate acquisitions

• SanDisk acquired Schooner Information Technology, Inc., an enterprise software company that develops flash-optimized database and data store solution in 2012.

• SanDisk acquired FlashSoft Corporation, a provider of innovative caching software products in 2012. 

• SanDisk acquired Pliant Technology, Inc., a developer of enterprise solid state drives in 2011. 

• SanDisk acquired msystems Ltd., a developer of flash memory storage products in 2006. 

• SanDisk acquired Matrix Semiconductor, Inc., a company that pioneers and supplied 3D-based one-time programmable chip technology in 2006. 

 

Patent portfolio

SanDisk currently holds more than 4,500 patents worldwide. The company’s patent portfolio is consistently recognized as one of the strongest in the technology industry.

 

Thomson Reuters named SanDisk as one of the “Top 100 Global Innovators in 2012,” and IEEE Spectrum ranked SanDisk as having one of the strongest patent portfolios out of 5,000 companies and organizations. 

 

Corporate social responsibility

Since its inception in 2003, the SanDisk Foundation has donated more than $16 million to more than 800 charitable organizations in the U.S. and other countries where the company has a significant presence.

 

SanDisk won the 2012 Golden Peacock Global Corporate Social Responsibility Award and won Israel's 2012, 2011 and 2010 Maala Award for excellence in a range of corporate social responsibility issues.

 

In its 2012 report on progress relating to conflict minerals, the Enough Project rated SanDisk the third highest of 24 consumer electronics companies.