Ian,
Non volatile and reprogramable memory (EEPROM, Flash) is already commonly used in embedded systems such as medical devices and avionics systems to store fault info, software program, usage record, user configuration, etc. Like I said before, in embedded systems where the non-volatile memory device is not removable, it's very difficult to set a standard. The memory chips are designed on the circuit board and the hardware engineers will choose the flash or EEPROM that meet the cost, size, pin count, ease of programability, reliability, storage density, etc. criteria. It seems to me that flash chips from Sandisk are competitive in all those criteria, except may be cost (I don't understand why).
May be a question for Sandisk. I don't have the info in front of me to prove it, but I have seen articles stating that other companies flash is more competitive, price wise, than Sandisk's flash. Is this true, and so why? |
