The solid state drive (SSD) market will grow faster than expected in 2008, with the SATA interface promising to become the mainstream for notebook-use SSDs in the future, according to Wallace Kou, president and CEO of IC designer Silicon Motion. Kou noted three main trends in NAND flash applications: handset-use microSD cards, embedded memory and SSDs. Handsets with memory card slots account for 27-30% of the handset market in 2007, and the proportion will rise to 40% in 2008, spurring growth of microSD"s share, he said.
For embedded memory, the Apple iPhone has offered good demonstration to the market, Kou said. While the mainstream embedded memory for handsets has already reached 8GB, the capacity will be even higher in 2008, he added