Most Flash storage is NAND Flash.
Companies who make NAND Flash: Samsung,Toshiba,Intel,Micron,ST
NOR and NAND Shares, from:
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2005/08/12/36083/NANDflashcontinuestooutsellNOR.htm
we can see NAND Revenue 4100, NOR Revenue 2272
so NAND has 64.34% market share
aslo see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory
http://www.purchasing.com/article/CA6272989.html?industryid=21950
http://www.techweb.com/wire/26803186
Flash memory was invented by Dr. Fujio Masuoka while working for
Toshiba in 1984. According to Toshiba, the name 'Flash' was suggested
by his colleague, Mr. Shoji Ariizumi, because the erasure process of
the memory contents reminded him of a flash of a camera. Dr. Masuoka
presented the invention in the IEEE 1984 Integrated Electronics
Devices Meeting held in San Jose, California. Intel saw the massive
potential of the invention and introduced first commercial NOR type
flash chip in 1988. It has long erase and write times, but has a full
address/data (memory) interface that allows random access to any
location. This makes it suitable for storage of program code that
needs to be infrequently updated, such as a computer's BIOS or the
firmware of set-top boxes. Its endurance is 10,000 to 1,000,000 erase
cycles. NOR-based flash was the basis of early flash-based removable
media; Compact Flash was originally based on it, though later cards
moved to the cheaper NAND flash.
NAND flash from Samsung and Toshiba followed in 1989. It has faster
erase and write times, higher density, and lower cost per bit than NOR
flash, and ten times the endurance. However its I/O interface allows
only sequential access to data. This makes it suitable for
mass-storage devices such as PC cards and various memory cards, and
somewhat less useful for computer memory. The first NAND-based
removable media format was SmartMedia, and numerous others have
followed: MMC, Secure Digital, Memory Stick and xD-Picture Cards. A
new generation of these formats is becoming a reality with RS-MMC
(Reduced Size MultiMedia Card), the TransFlash and miniSD variants of
Secure Digital and the new USB/Memory card hybrid Intelligent Stick.
The new formats exhibit a greatly reduced size, usually under 4cm². |