SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today expanded its mobile storage portfolio by upgrading two of its most popular mobile flash drives. The award-winning SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick is now available in 200GB* capacity, while the SanDisk Ultra Dual USB Drive 3.0 is now available in 128GB capacity with faster transfer speeds, giving users even more options when it comes to expanding the capabilities of their mobile devices.

"With the explosion of content, people need more advanced storage solutions to keep up with the volume and quality of the photos, videos and files they're creating on their mobile devices," said Dinesh Bahal, vice president, product marketing, SanDisk. "Our goal is to deliver innovative, intuitive offerings that help them capture life's great moments without worrying about storage limitations."

Western Digital Corporation and SanDisk Corporation today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Western Digital will acquire all of the outstanding shares of SanDisk for a combination of cash and stock. The offer values SanDisk common stock at $86.50 per share or a total equity value of approximately $19 billion, using a five-day volume weighted average price ending on October 20, 2015 of $79.60 per share of Western Digital common stock. If the previously announced investment in Western Digital by Unisplendour Corporation Limited closes prior to this acquisition, Western Digital will pay $85.10 per share in cash and 0.0176 shares of Western Digital common stock per share of SanDisk common stock; and if the Unisplendour transaction has not closed or has been terminated, $67.50 in cash and 0.2387 shares of Western Digital common stock per share of SanDisk common stock. The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

The combination is the next step in the transformation of Western Digital into a storage solutions company with global scale, extensive product and technology assets, and deep expertise in non-volatile memory (NVM). With this transaction, Western Digital will double its addressable market and expand its participation in higher-growth segments. SanDisk brings a 27-year history of innovation and expertise in NVM, systems solutions and manufacturing. The combination also enables Western Digital to vertically integrate into NAND, securing long-term access to solid state technology at lower cost.

Toshiba Corporation and SanDisk Corporation today announced the start of equipment installation in the New Fab 2 facility at Yokkaichi Operations. New Fab 2 is primarily intended to provide the clean room space necessary to transition a significant portion of the current Yokkaichi 2D NAND capacity to 3D flash memory. The companies also signed definitive agreements for joint manufacturing of 3D flash memory and investment in New Fab 2.

Seiichi Mori, Corporate Senior Vice President of Toshiba Corporation and President and CEO of Semiconductor & Storage Products Company, said, "The partnership of SanDisk and Toshiba has consistently pioneered advances in the memory industry through our technology leadership and commitment to innovation and excellence. We look forward to fabricating 3D flash memory, BiCS FLASH, in New Fab 2."

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced it has reached agreement with SK Hynix, Inc. to modify and extend their intellectual property licensing relationship and enter into a multi-year commercial relationship under which SK Hynix will supply its leading-edge DRAM products to SanDisk. These agreements include a settlement of the trade secret misappropriation suit filed by SanDisk in 2014.

Under these agreements, which will expire on March 31, 2023, SanDisk will release SK Hynix of its liability pertaining to the trade secret litigation and license certain intellectual property rights to SK Hynix in exchange for license and royalty payments to be made over the duration of the agreement. In addition, SK Hynix has agreed to supply SanDisk with certain volumes of its DRAM products for MCP and SSD applications. The specific terms and conditions of the agreements, including with respect to economic consideration, are confidential.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today expanded its mobile storage portfolio with a new wireless mobile flash drive, the SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick. This new drive enables easy sharing, transferring and accessing of photos and videos between mobile devices and computers. Building on its award-winning SanDisk Connect Wireless family, the SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick features a higher capacity, up to 128GB, a new app and cool, compact design - all at a great price.

The SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick now gives consumers even more freedom to save and access photos, videos and other files from their favorite Wi-Fi-enabled devices. As consumers continue to embrace premium mobile features such as high-quality photo capture and Full HD video, SanDisk's new wireless storage device is designed to meet their quickly growing storage needs, at an affordable price. The availability of up to 128GB of capacity allows users to effectively double their mobile storage for greater flexibility on the go.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today introduced the iNAND 7232 storage solution, a new, advanced embedded flash drive (EFD) optimized to deliver best-in-class imaging performance and superior storage capacity in flagship mobile devices. Available in capacities up to 128 GB, the iNAND 7232 storage solution enables original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to introduce smartphones, tablets and other connected devices that feature ample storage to meet the needs of increasing consumer content while providing data-rich application experiences and next-generation digital photography capabilities.

"From North America to China, consumers are demanding higher and higher capacity storage," said Christopher Bergey, SanDisk's vice president and general manager of Mobile and Tablet Solutions. "Our iNAND 7232 storage solution not only enables mobile OEMs to cost-effectively deliver the robust storage mobile users want, it is also our most advanced embedded storage solution to date. It leverages new, innovative application-level storage architecture and SanDisk's latest 15 nanometer flash storage technology to enable outstanding application experiences, terrific 4K Ultra HD video capture and digital photography experiences never before possible in flagship smartphones."

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced it has shipped more than two billion microSD cards since it started commercial shipment of the technology ten years ago. The company commemorates this milestone on the eve of Mobile World Congress Shanghai.

Invented by SanDisk in 2004, the microSD format was initially known as TransFlash. In 2005 SanDisk contributed the technology to the SD Card Association who renamed and released the final specifications for the microSD format on July 13, 2005. This format has become the most popular removable memory card in SanDisk's history. Collectively, SanDisk's two billion microSD cards could store an estimated 11,103 billion megabytes (MB)* worth of memory - the equivalent of more than 100MB of flash storage for every man, woman and child that ever lived on Earth.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, at Computex Taipei 2015 today announced its new CloudSpeed Eco Gen. II SATA SSD, a purpose-built storage device for cloud service providers with up to 2TB capacity. This new SSD is now sampling with select hyperscale customers. Based on 15 nm NAND flash, the new CloudSpeed Eco Gen. II SSD delivers greater storage density with 3x the streaming bandwidth vs. hard disk drives (HDDs). Designed as a drop-in replacement for HDDs, CloudSpeed Eco Gen. II provides datacenters with a lower cost-per-square-foot for hyperscale applications such as analytics, media streaming and content repositories.

Cloud Data Services, such as Big Data Analytics, SaaS, IaaS and PaaS environments, are driving radical data center transformation. The number of connected 'things' is set to explode, with Gartner forecasting this number will reach 25 billion by 2020, generating a deluge of data that will need to be analyzed in real-time. Micropayments, online commerce and similar applications are read-intensive and require high data throughput and scalable storage capacity.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today entered the portable SSD market with a family of high-performance drives, including the SanDisk Extreme 900 Portable SSDs, the world's fastest line of Type C-based portable SSDs; and the SanDisk Extreme 500 Portable SSDs, the company's new pocket-sized, rugged drives. The SanDisk Extreme 900 drives feature speeds of up to nine times faster than a portable hard drive, while the SanDisk Extreme 500 drives offer speeds up to four times faster. These powerful solutions are ideal for photographers, videographers, creative professionals and tech enthusiasts looking to move massive files at phenomenal speeds, helping them save time and simplify work processes at the office or out in the field.

"As a recognized leader in developing solutions for professional photographers and videographers, we designed this game-changing family of offerings to provide our customers with even greater speeds and capacities to keep up with rapidly increasing demands for high-quality content," said Dinesh Bahal, vice president, product marketing, SanDisk. "Whether a professional or amateur, this level of portability, speed and capacity is exceptional, and we believe it will transform the way people create and produce high quality video content-ultimately saving them time and money."

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today launched two new, USB 3.0 flash drives - the 128GB SanDisk Ultra Fit USB 3.0 Flash Drive, the world's smallest USB 3.0; and the 256GB SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 Flash Drive, SanDisk's highest capacity USB flash drive to-date. The new offerings enhance SanDisk's award-winning USB line-up with impressive capacities and performance, delivering speeds up to 10 times faster than a standard USB 2.0 drive. With these higher capacities, consumers can now save more of their favorite videos, photos and music on their laptops, TVs, gaming consoles or other entertainment systems.

"The quality of content consumers create and consume continues to increase, generating higher demand for more sophisticated digital storage," said Philippe Willams, director of product marketing, SanDisk. "With remarkable USB 3.0 speed and compact designs, our new high-capacity USBs let users enjoy even more of their favorite content without having to even think about running out of space. SanDisk is constantly engaging in new ways to leverage our flash memory expertise and deliver innovative, reliable solutions that really make a difference in consumers' daily lives."

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today introduced the new SanDisk Z400s SSD, a cost effective solid-state drive (SSD) designed to replace hard-disk drives (HDDs) in computing platforms and embedded applications. PCs and embedded systems need consistent, reliable access to storage in order to meet business demands. The Z400s outperforms HDDs by 20x, while providing 5x the reliability with 20x lower average power consumption, all at a price point on par with HDDs. The SanDisk Z400s SSD joins the company's existing portfolio of flash-based solutions that are designed to deliver a delightful user experience and reliability at an affordable price point

"The Z400s represents a feat of engineering that addresses the needs of two distinct markets-PC OEM manufacturers and embedded application designers," said Rizwan Ahmed, senior director of product marketing, client platform solutions, SanDisk. "With a single architecture, SanDisk is able to provide OEMs with an affordable solution for displacing HDDs in today's cutting edge consumer devices, and help embedded application designers avoid overpaying for un-needed space-all while delivering the peak performance and high-reliability that only SSDs can supply."

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced that it has successfully developed its 48 layer second generation 3D NAND, also referred to as BiCS2. Pilot production will commence as planned in the second half of 2015 in the Yokkaichi joint venture facility, with meaningful commercial production targeted for 2016.

"We are very pleased to announce our second generation 3D NAND, which is a 48 layer architecture developed with our partner Toshiba," said Dr. Siva Sivaram, executive vice president, memory technology, SanDisk. "We utilized our first generation 3D NAND technology as a learning vehicle, enabling us to develop our commercial second generation 3D NAND, which we believe will deliver compelling storage solutions for our customers."

SanDisk plans to use the second generation 3D NAND technology across a broad range of solutions, from removable products to enterprise SSDs.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today introduced the 200GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card, Premium Edition, the world's highest capacity microSD card for use in mobile devices. In just one year after introducing its record-breaking 128GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC card, SanDisk has increased storage capacity by 56% within the same fingernail-sized form factor. Keeping up with the demands of today's mobile users, the new card provides the freedom to capture, save and share photos, videos and other files without worrying about storage limitations.

"Mobile devices are completely changing the game. Seven out of 10 images captured by consumers are now from smartphones and tablets. Consumers view mobile-first devices as their primary means for image capture and sharing, and by 2019 smartphones and tablets will account for nine out of 10 images captured," said Christopher Chute, Vice President, Worldwide Digital Imaging Practice, IDC. "As the needs of mobile users continue to change, SanDisk is on the forefront of delivering solutions for these demands as is clearly illustrated through their growing portfolio of innovative products, including the new 200GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC card."

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today introduced the iNAND 7132 storage solution, the most advanced embedded storage solution from SanDisk to date. Designed for use in flagship mobile devices, the iNAND 7132 storage solution features SanDisk's new iNAND Accelerator Architecture with SmartSLC technology, an innovative new storage architecture that quickly and intelligently responds on-demand to mobile users' needs and gives superior experiences to the most data-intensive applications. Available in capacities up to 64GB, iNAND 7132 storage solution enables original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to introduce a new generation of high-capacity smartphones, tablets and connected devices that offer exceptional user experiences.

"iNAND 7132 is the perfect high capacity storage solution for the next generation of smartphones, tablets and smart devices," said Drew Henry, senior vice president and general manager for Mobile and Connected Solutions at SanDisk. "Featuring our new iNAND Accelerator Architecture with SmartSLC, our best-in-class iNAND 7132 storage solution delivers amazing performance for faster burst photography and 4K Ultra HD video capture, supports the newest 802.11 standards with ease, and enables blazingly fast data side-loading."

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today introduced two new, innovative mobile memory solutions that help consumers manage and transfer content captured on their favorite devices. The company's first Dual USB Drive with Type C connector, ideal for Type C-ready connected devices, and the 128GB iXpand Flash Drive, designed for iPhone and iPad, both enable consumers to quickly and easily transfer content directly from a mobile device to a Mac or PC computer.

According to a recent industry report from IDC, this year people will capture and share an estimated 1.6 trillion images, and seven out of 10 of those images will be captured on a mobile device. With this rising trend, users want to be able to easily share and store their content across multiple devices and operating systems - in a seamless, intuitive and secure way.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today introduced the company's first high endurance microSDXC memory card built to withstand up to 10,000 hours of Full HD Video recording.

Leveraging its deep expertise in NAND flash and systems technology capabilities, SanDisk developed a proprietary technology and process to enable high-intensity recording. Through rigorous testing, the new technology has proven itself to enable the company to reach a new milestone -- a 64GB microSDXC card that allows consumers to write and rewrite up to 10,000 hours of Full HD video recording.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today introduced a new suite of robust, automotive grade NAND flash solutions designed for next-generation 'connected cars' and automotive infotainment systems. SanDisk Automotive storage solutions are optimized to bring reliable, high-performance storage to a wide range of in-vehicle applications, including 3D mapping and advanced augmented reality in navigation systems, entertainment systems, intuitive driver assist technology, data event recorders, and more. By providing the responsiveness and capacity of SanDisk flash storage technology, SanDisk Automotive solutions offer the potential for car manufacturers to continue to push the boundaries of connected car application experience.

Today's vehicles are rapidly becoming more technologically sophisticated, with many featuring advanced connected applications that were once only possible on a smartphone. A recent Gartner Research report forecasted that "about one in five vehicles on the road worldwide will have some form of wireless network connection by 2020, amounting to more than 250 million connected vehicles in service".

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 28, 2014. Fourth quarter revenue of $1.74 billion was slightly higher on a year-over-year basis and decreased 1 percent sequentially. Total revenue for fiscal 2014 was a record $6.63 billion, a 7 percent increase from $6.17 billion in fiscal 2013.

On a GAAP basis, fourth quarter net income was $202 million, or $0.86 per share, compared to net income of $338 million, or $1.45 per share, in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013 and $263 million, or $1.09 per share, in the third quarter of fiscal 2014. Net income for fiscal 2014 was $1.01 billion, or $4.23 per share, compared to $1.04 billion, or $4.34 per share, in fiscal 2013.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced SanDisk Ultra Dual USB Drive 3.0, a USB flash drive featuring both a micro-USB and a high-speed USB 3.0 connector for super-fast file transfers between On The Go (OTG)-enabled Android devices, PC and Mac computers.

Adding to its portfolio of innovative memory solutions, including SanDisk's current, extremely popular SanDisk Ultra Dual USB Drive 2.0, the new SanDisk Ultra Dual USB Drive 3.0 enables mobile users to transfer files even faster, as well as free up space on their smartphones and tablets. The drive simply connects via micro-USB to a compatible Android device and gives users up to 64GB of extra storage instantly.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, continues its momentum in the consumer SSD space by introducing two new offerings: the SanDisk SSD Plus, a 2.5" entry-level drive, and the SanDisk Ultra II mSATA SSD, a new form factor for the SanDisk Ultra II SSD product line. The SanDisk SSD Plus targets laptop and desktop PC users who want to significantly improve system performance. The SanDisk Ultra II mSATA SSD is for laptop and tablet users looking to increase the capacity and overall performance of their mSATA-enabled systems. The two new solutions are being unveiled at the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show, the world's gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies.

Building on SanDisk's impressive line-up of SSD offerings, these new drives are designed to bring all the benefits of flash memory technology-faster speeds, extended battery life and upgraded systems-to users at an affordable price. With speeds of up to 23x the performance of a typical hard drive, the SanDisk SSD Plus will deliver faster boot and load times as well as better overall system performance, eliminating the need to completely replace a slow laptop or desktop PC. The SanDisk Ultra II mSATA SSD delivers competitive performance, with read speeds of up to 550MB/s, while adding up to 512GB of capacity so users can get more out of their mSATA-enabled notebooks and tablets.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced the SanDisk iXpandTM Flash Drive, the company's first USB Flash Drive designed specifically for iPhone and iPad.

"According to IDC, nearly three-quarters of all images are now captured on smartphones and tablets1," said Dinesh Bahal, vice president, product marketing, SanDisk. "With this significant increase in mobile-generated content, consumers are looking for easy ways to manage it all. In fact, our research shows that 82% of U.S. smartphone users find transferring photos, videos, music and other files to be very important to them2. We created the iXpand Flash Drive to offer consumers a quick and safe way to move their favorite content between devices so it's available when and where they want it."

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced the availability of the SanDisk X300 SSD. The SanDisk X300 SSD leverages the latest advancements in X3 technology to deliver a great user experience with high-performance, while utilizing robust error-correction to increase reliability and provide peace of mind for today's CIOs. SanDisk's new client SSD also includes an improved SSD Dashboard, which provides visibility into the drive's performance, security, and available firmware updates, in order to maintain peak performance at all times-an important feature for today's mobile workforce.

"The SanDisk X300 SSD is our first X-series drive to incorporate the use of our nCache 2.0 tiered caching architecture and X3, three bit-per-cell technology, to deliver a highly optimized and reliable solution for both CIOs and their employees," said Kevin Conley, senior vice president and general manager, client storage solutions at SanDisk. "This mainstream corporate drive not only provides the reliability and performance companies need today, but also helps CIOs reduce total cost of ownership and shorten the time to return on investment."

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced its SanDisk Tech Assist Refresh (STAR) program for the company's X-series line of client SSDs. This innovative service provides corporate CIOs and IT decision makers with a hassle free solution for upgrading their fleet of employee laptops from slower hard disk drives to higher performance, lower power and more reliable SSDs. Through the STAR program, SanDisk relieves IT departments of having to manage all aspects of upgrading corporate laptops such as, endpoint inventory analysis, employee service scheduling, system upgrades, data migration, daily progress reporting, post-upgrade analysis and support.

"At SanDisk we're keenly focused on being a trusted advisor to CIOs and IT decision makers in order to help address their key pain points-security, system reliability, employee productivity, and capex," said Tarun Loomba, vice president of marketing, client storage solutions at SanDisk. "Our X-series portfolio is designed to address these pain points, and now with our STAR program, we can go one step further by relieving CIOs from the cumbersome process of migrating corporate information from existing HDD-based laptops to our highly-reliable, performance enhancing X-series SSDs, and do it for them in a timely, cost-effective manner."

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced that its award-winning ULLtraDIMM Solid State Drive (SSD), has been selected by Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd for inclusion in its RH8100 V3 servers. Huawei selected the ULLtraDIMM SSD after extensive testing under a variety of enterprise workloads and end-user scenarios using the RH8100 V3 server, which demonstrated the ULLtraDIMM SSD achieved the industry's lowest write latency at less than five microseconds and offered bandwidth that topped that of any other SSD solution. Adding flash-based storage to the DDR memory bus with direct connection to the processor allows Huawei to deliver a powerful solution to help customers address growing data center application performance requirements without significant additional infrastructure investments.

"The ULLtraDIMM SSD was designed to expand the reach of ultra-low latency flash storage throughout the data center and scale to meet the requirements of any enterprise application, no matter how bandwidth or capacity intensive," said John Scaramuzzo, senior vice president and general manager, Enterprise Storage Solutions at SanDisk. "We are very excited to partner with Huawei to offer this innovative, ultra-low latency storage solution, which will accelerate the performance of its customers' cloud, virtualization, OLTP, HPC and other applications, and help them experience the benefits of a flash-transformed data center."

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today unveiled significant upgrades to its SanDisk Extreme PRO CFast 2.0 memory card and announced that the SanDisk Extreme PRO SSD has been qualified for 4K capture. These two products expand SanDisk's extensive portfolio of high-performance products designed for the professional broadcast, cinematography and photography industries.

"The performance demands for media and broadcast professionals continue to rise and SanDisk is committed to delivering leading-edge capture and storage technologies," said Dinesh Bahal, vice president, product marketing, SanDisk. "The new SanDisk Extreme PRO CFast 2.0 card and SanDisk Extreme PRO SSD will help produce the highest quality content possible, and significantly improve workflow efficiency."