The solid state drive (SSD) market will grow faster than expected in 2008, with the SATA interface promising to become the mainstream for notebook-use SSDs in the future, according to Wallace Kou, president and CEO of IC designer Silicon Motion.
Kou noted three main trends in NAND flash applications: handset-use microSD cards, embedded memory and SSDs. Handsets with memory card slots account for 27-30% of the handset market in 2007, and the proportion will rise to 40% in 2008, spurring growth of microSD's share, he said.
For embedded memory, the Apple iPhone has offered good demonstration to the market, Kou said. While the mainstream embedded memory for handsets has already reached 8GB, the capacity will be even higher in 2008, he added.
SSD will definitely become one of the mainstream NAND flash applications in the future, with its production value standing a chance of surpassing that of the memory cards, Kou predicts.
He said Asustek Computer's Eee PC adopts CF-interface controllers, but the SSD will find its chief market in the mid-range and high-end applications featuring a SATA interface. He revealed that Silicon Motion will soon unveil its controller ICs supporting SATA.
He noted that currently major makers have chiefly launched SSDs based on single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash, but as SLC NAND flash prices are almost three times that of multi-level cell (MLC) ones, MLC SSDs will be the mainstream.
He said the SDD market will pick up fast beginning in the second half of 2008. He remarked that the downward trend of NAND flash prices are expected to continue in the first quarter of 2008, and may become stable in the second quarter. Although NAND flash prices are falling, Kou said he is not worried about an oversupply because new applications will pick up fast.
Also, Silicon Motion has recently seen its embedded flash controller chips adopted by Microsoft's NAND flash-based Zune. Kou said Silicon Motion's partnership with Microsoft will last until 2009, and in the future the two sides will co-develop new models.
Silicon Motion president and CEO Wallace Kou
Photo: CJ Liu, Digitimes, December 2007
Article translated by Rodney Chan
