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Technology Stocks : WDC, NAND, NVM, enterprise storage systems, etc.
SNDK 245.85+0.5%Nov 19 3:59 PM EST
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To: storage_savant who wrote (3824)6/11/2018 4:51:42 PM
From: Art Bechhoefer  Read Replies (1) of 4828
 
So-called 4-bit NAND, obtained by SanDisk through its acquisition of M-Systems, has not been seen as an attractive technology because the slower speed of 4-bit, compared with 3-bit per cell technology has been a real obstacle. Had 4-bit per cell technology shown more promise, it would very likely have delayed or possibly eliminated the need for 3D NAND.

One big gain from both 4-bit and 3-bit technologies, which I believe originated with M-Systems, is that when SanDisk bought M-Systems, it was able to win an arbitration case against Samsung, resulting in greatly increased royalties and profits for SanDisk through a renewed licensing and royalty agreement with Samsung.

Samsung earlier had made an agreement with M-Systems to make all its 3 and 4 bit wafers but welched on the deal when Apple contracted with Samsung for so much NAND memory that Samsung simply failed to honor its prior agreement to make memory chips for M-Systems. That failure led to an arbitration agreement after SanDisk bought M-Systems (at a time when M-Systems was in danger of going bankrupt because of Samsung's behavior). The arbitrator found in favor of M-Systems, which meant that the license given by M-Systems to Samsung was terminated through breach of contract. This gave SanDisk the upper hand, to put it mildly. And it also says a lot about the kind of company that Samsung was. Maybe it has changed with new management.

Art
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