Toshiba is climbing in the NAND market

JAPAN'S Toshiba has seen its NAND revenues surge by nearly 50 per cent during the third quarter.

According to Isuppli, although Toshiba is still only a number two in the market, the outfit dramatically outperformed the overall market in the quarter, with its NAND revenues booming to reach $1.4 billion compared with the previous quarter's $924 million.

But the outfit has done really well because it is the producer of three-bit-per-cell parts, which have lower manufacturing costs.

Three-bit-per-cell flash NAND is a form of multi-level cell (MLC) technology, which allows the storage of more than one bit of data in each cell of a memory device, increasing its effective density. It is also cheaper to make, which means that the profit margins are higher.

MLC flash NAND memories are mostly two-bit-per-cell devices, which store twice as much data as single-level cell (SLC) flash. But Toshiba's three-bit-per-cell flash memories triple the amount of storage compared to regular SLC flash.

The outfit has been flogging its three-bit-per-cell flash memories in consumer storage media such as USB, SD and microSD products. µ