Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Seagate buys SandForce
http://anandtech.com/show/8073/seagate-acquires-sandforce-from-avagolsi
Now, SandForce had already been bought by LSI, which was subsequently bought by Avago. But still, this means that Seagate now has their own in-house SSD controller to build SSDs around.
I think that this is a little worrying because SandForce is the standard SSD controller that most companies that don't have their own in-house controller use, with Marvell the only other one worth mentioning. (I don't regard Phison or JMicron controllers as being worth mentioning, and they're scarcely used, anyway.) Will Seagate continue to license out SandForce SSD controllers, and in a way that other SSD vendors find as attractive as it is now?
It's interesting that the industry has moved so much toward a single company having its own in-house SSD controller and NAND flash production; early SSDs mostly bought both of those from other sources:
Samsung has its own NAND and controller.
Toshiba has its own NAND and controller, having recently bought OCZ, which previously bought Indilinx. Toshiba actually had its own controller before that, but it wasn't very good.
Intel has its own NAND and controller, though it commonly used SandForce controllers in some of its SSDs.
Hynix has its own NAND and controller, after having bought LAMD to get the controller.
Micron/Crucial has its own NAND, though it licenses the Marvell controller and writes its own firmware for it.
Seagate just acquired its own controller, though it still doesn't have its own NAND.
Western Digital has bought a controller in the past, though it wasn't any good.
Remember that the Marvell controller requires the company to write its own firmware, which smaller SSD vendors don't necessarily have the capability to do. So what happens to the smaller SSD vendors that got their start in DRAM, such as Mushkin, Corsair, and Kingston? Will they be forced out of the market?
It's worth noting that the price-competitive SSDs have long tended to come from vendors that didn't have their own controller, especially Mushkin and Crucial. Even OCZ and Intel, while they had their own controllers, tended to charge much more for SSDs that used their in-house controller than for those using a SandForce controller.
Comments
Bigger companys usually make better products, so it is ok for smaller companys to vanish in my book. Also, if a small company actually does do a better job and offers something valuable, they will be big ones soon anyways and not notice any issues.
Win Win for the consumer.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Smaller vendors aren't going to make enough money selling SSDs to get into the NAND flash production business, even if they were to get 50% market share in SSDs sold. Building modern fabs costs billions of dollars and a bunch of people with very specialized skills. The only significant NAND flash vendors are those that have been making DRAM basically forever, plus IMFT, which is part owned by Micron, which has also been making DRAM basically forever. Intel (the other part-owner of IMFT) was big enough to do it, but that's a rather bigger company to begin with than Mushkin or Corsair are now.
SSD controllers are somewhat easier to build yourself than NAND flash. Indeed, Indilinx and SandForce did so as start-ups--which led to getting bought out by larger companies. LAMD also made their own SSD controller, which led to getting bought by Hynix. That leaves Marvell as the only major SSD controller vendor that doesn't build their own SSDs, and Marvell is a huge company with a ton of products, so their SSD controller is only a small fraction of their revenue.
That leaves only marvell hm, are there any other companies manufacturing or capable of starting production of nand in other parts of the world, for example in Russia, China or India ?