Industry giants Intel and Micron are joining forces with the creation of a new company, IM Flash Technologies, LLC. The new firm will drive the NAND Flash portion of Intel's and Micron's business, with their combined efforts intended to give them a competitive edge versus competitors like Samsung, who currently dominates the market. Interestingly, Apple has "pre-paid" Intel and Micron (or will) $250 Million for first dibs off the production line.
"The creation of this new company supports Intel's intent to maintain its industry-leading position in nonvolatile memory and enables us to rapidly enter a fast-growing portion of the flash market segment," said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO. "We are looking forward to working with Micron, and are extremely pleased to have Apple broaden its relationship with us."
The company, though jointly crafted, will be under control of Micron with a 51% stake, both companies contributing multiple billions of dollars. Flash is quickly becoming the fastest growing portion of the computing industry, and supposedly we will see advancements towards 72 and even 50nm process for flash in the future.