SK Hynix said it is looking to boost its competitiveness in the SSD field by releasing products equipped with its in-house developed controller chips in the third quarter of 2013.

SK Hynix' mid-2012 acquisition of California-based Link_A_Media Devices (LAMD), a developer of memory-chip controllers, already suggested that the NAND flash chipmaker is looking to move into the market for controllers that work with processors to increase the speed and reliability of flash memory used in mobile devices.

Samsung Electronics, and Toshiba and SanDisk have their own controller solutions for embedded NAND flash memory modules, such as SSDs and eMMC devices, while Micron Technology reportedly is also looking to develop NAND flash controllers in-house for embedded applications which the company becomes increasingly focus on.

NAND flash vendors used to rely on the supply of controller ICs developed by LSI and Marvell, as well as Taiwan-based IC design firms such as Phison Electronics, Silicon Motion Technology, Skymedi and Solid State System (3S). Usually they would source chips from LSI and Marvell for high-end and high value-added products, such as stand-alone SSDs, and solutions from their Taiwan-based partners for common flash devices such as USB drives and memory cards.

As more NAND flash memory chips are designed into embedded applications, many suppliers of stand-alone NAND flash device controllers - mainly Taiwan-based - are found incapable of providing technologies for these storage solutions. A lack of key technologies to develop embedded NAND controllers is now a major constraint to their business development.

But still, a few Taiwan-based players provide embedded flash controllers. Phison Electronics and Silicon Motion Technology reportedly are both shipping eMMC device controllers to SK Hynix. Phison is also supplying eMMC controllers to Micron, according to industry sources.

By: DocMemory
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