SanDisk
American digital storage corporation From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
SanDisk is an American multinational computer technology company based in Milpitas, California. A subsidary of Western Digital, it is known for its flash memory products, including memory cards and readers, USB flash drives, solid-state drives, and digital audio players.
 Logo used since 2024 | |
.jpg) Western Digital office in Milpitas (home of Sandisk) | |
| Formerly |
|
|---|---|
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Computer data storage |
| Founded | June 1, 1988[1] |
| Founders |
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| Headquarters | , |
| Products | |
Number of employees | 8,790 |
| Parent | Western Digital |
| Website | www |
As of March 2019,[update] Western Digital was the fourth-largest manufacturer of flash memory having declined from third-largest in 2014.[2]
The company was originally founded in 1988 as SunDisk by Eli Harari, Sanjay Mehrotra, and Jack Yuan.[3] In 1995, just before its initial public offering, SunDisk changed its name to SanDisk, to avoid confusion with Sun Microsystems.[4]
SanDisk co-founder Eli Harari developed the Floating Gate EEPROM which proved the practicality, reliability and endurance of semiconductor-based data storage.[5]
In 1991, SanDisk produced the first flash-based solid-state drive (SSD) in a 2.5-inch hard disk drive form factor for IBM with a 20 MB capacity priced at about $1,000.[6]
In 1992, SanDisk introduced FlashDisk, a series of memory cards made for the PCMCIA or PC card form factor, so they could be inserted into the expansion slots of many laptops and handheld PCs of the time. Unlike other similar products at the time, FlashDisks did not require a battery to store their contents. SanDisk discontinued their production in 2002, and the highest capacity model had 8 gigabytes of capacity.[4]
On May 10, 2000, the Toshiba Corporation of Japan and the SanDisk Corporation said that they would jointly form a new semiconductor company to produce advanced flash memory, primarily for digital cameras.[7]
In 2005 SanDisk entered the digital audio player market with the release of its first flash-based MP3 player, the SanDisk Sansa e100.[8] As soon as 2006, they became the second largest maker of digital audio players in the United States behind Apple.[9]
In October 2005, SanDisk acquired Matrix Semiconductor.[10] In July 2006, SanDisk acquired M-Systems.[11] In May 2011, SanDisk acquired Pliant Technology, a manufacturer of solid state drives, for $327 million.[12] In February 2012, SanDisk acquired FlashSoft.[13] In June 2012, SanDisk acquired Schooner Information Technology, developer of the flash-optimized database software SchoonerSQL and caching software Membrain.[13] In July 2013, SanDisk acquired SMART Storage Systems, a producer of SSDs for the enterprise market, for $307 million.[14] In June 2014, SanDisk acquired Fusion-io, a producer of flash memory for enterprise data centers, for $1.1 billion.[15]
In 2012, the Enough Project ranked SanDisk the third highest of 24 consumer electronics companies on "progress on conflict minerals".[16]
In 2014, SanDisk co-founder Harari won the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Barack Obama for his innovations and contributions to flash memory storage.[17]
On January 8, 2015, NexGen Storage, which had been acquired by Fusion-io, was spun out as an independent company;[18] it would be acquired by Pivot3 in January 2016.[19]
In October 2015, Western Digital announced its intent to acquire SanDisk for $19 billion.[20] The acquisition was completed on May 12, 2016; the valuation was lowered to $16 billion after Chinese company Unisplendour pulled out of an agreement to acquire a 15% stake in WD.[21][22]
In October 2023, Western Digital announced its intent to split into two publicly-traded companies, dealing in hard drives and flash storage respectively, with SanDisk to inherit ownership of Western Digital's flash storage products. The company began preparations for the split in October 2024, including moving all of Western Digital-branded flash storage products under SanDisk's website.[23][24] In December 2024, SanDisk unveiled a new pixel-inspired logo (replacing a design used in various forms since 1995), changing its stylization to "Sandisk".[25]
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