Mark,
I'm not sure what "FRAM memory is. Do you mean DRAM? If so, they don't compete. Flash is like a little disk drive about the size of a chip. But it doesn't have any moving parts, doesn't crash, doesn't get "hot", doesn't "forget" what is written on it. It also doesn't have very great capacities yet. I don't even think that anything greater 60mb has been developed yet, though I could easily be wrong about that. I tiptoed into SNDK a couple of years ago mainly because SEG/Shugart bought a big stake in the company (25%) at about 7 or 8 dollars a share, I believe. SEG still owns about 23% (diluted last year by a secondary that they didn't participate in). I've just held it as a speculation since then. Could've sold at 40 last year, didn't. I think it will get there again, though exactly when I can't say. It could be huge winner in the ripeness of time, since they have not only a lot of patents, but broad ones, and have tested them in court many times, winning each time as far as I know.
Atmel may be a player in flash. There are lots of them, not just the ones I mentioned, although they are among the largest.
Hope that helps,
Sam |
