Well the flash memory market is just a gigantic size, in 2007 the total worldwide market was almost $14 billion. Flash-memory storage cards and USB flash drives accounted for about 80 percent of the total NAND chip demand.
"NAND flash is used heavily in consumer-electronics applications-including MP3 players, USB flash drives and digital still cameras-which are driven by retail sales to consumers. Spending growth on these items is expected to slow in 2008 compared to 2007 due to the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis and its collateral impact on worldwide consumers and economies. In light of this development, the world's largest buyers of NAND-type flash will slow their spending growth in 2008." - iSuppli (April 2008)
For decades, users would buy memory chips to increase RAM memory for laptops and PC computers. Now, it's a challenge to find another business as dynamic and fast-paced as memory chips. NAND flash memory in particular is probably the most hyper-scaled technology among electronic devices such as digital cameras and pc memory.
Game-changers like 3G wireless, video game systems, SMS text messages, digital video recorders, Blackberry, iTunes, iPhone, Kindle, iPad and so on have created new markets for memory chips. So the industry is now driven both by pure technological advancements and by rapid product evolution cycles.
DRAM memory used for main memory in PCs is volatile meaning it does not store data when the power is off. Flash memory, on the other hand, is non-volatile so no power is required to maintain information that is stored in the chip. Apple Macbook Air for example can handle a drive up to 128MB and that is solid state memory. iPad has flash-based 16, 32, and 64 GB solid state drives.
"Demand continues to grow for large density chips that support high-resolution video and deliver enhanced storage, particularly in the area of embedded memories with a controller function that minimize development requirements and ease integration into system designs." - Toshiba, June 2010
