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Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hueyone who wrote (13859)	8/12/2000 3:16:04 PM
From: Ausdauer	Respond to of 60323

Huey, Thanks for hunting down some additional proof about SSTI's present capabilities and limitations. Wily showed pretty conclusively that it would be a stretch for SSTI to be manufacturing ultra-high density flash. The SSTI CEO, Bin Yeh, even indicated that they would be purchasing "commodity flash" and that their ramp-up in low to intermediate density flash using SuperFlash would remain at 16Mbit or below at the upper end. Dr. Harari hinted at these limitations during SanDisk conference call. The CEO of M-Systems also poked fun at SSTI for the misleading ADC press releases which left investors guessing. As you pointed out... ...while Hitachi in some regions, including North America, sells both its controller (and memory) components to vendors for assembly and/or repackaging... By selling the components and then allowing card assemblers to create the final product, a CompactFlash card, Hitachi skirts the issues regarding CompactFlash assembly. It is possible that both the flash storage component and the controller are licensed from SanDisk by Hitachi, but it is my understanding that only the flash storage actually is. This is based primarily on the date of the cross-licensing agreement between the parties. At the time that arrangement was reached, CompactFlash was not really being sold in the USA in any great quantity and even VGA resolution digital cameras were pretty scarce. I think this is how it works. Hitachi sells the controller and then allow card assemblers to use the product as they see fit. The company who actually manufactures the fully functional card is thus responsible for any infringement. I believe the case may be different in Japan. Someone posted here earlier that Hitachi has been selling its brand of CF in Japan. My prior research on this topic included the 1998 cross-licensing agreement with SST and an e-mail which hinted that the SST controller was being sold to Kingston. There is nothing terribly secretive about these facts. I will repost the links if I can find them. Ausdauer

To: hueyone who wrote (13859)	8/12/2000 3:53:20 PM
From: Ausdauer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Huey, The SNDK/SSTI cross-licensing agreement is dated July 8, 1998 and represents the first card level licensure... ssti.com SSTI has implied via an e-mail correspondence that some of their CompactFlash cards were either re-labelled as Kingston cards or that Kingston had used the SSTI controller. I have never seen SSTI cards available at the retail level, either at "click" or "brick & mortar" outlets... Message 13387110 I believe that Kingston has an interest in Lexar Media from prior agreements, but I don't believe Lexar controllers are used in Kingston's cards. Ausdauer